Cepheus Protocol news & patch notes

The virus is loose across the Bay Area. Flashpoints are erupting across the peninsula as entire districts fall into chaos and infected swarms push deeper into civilian zones.

CERC forces are already in the field.

Embedded military reporters and frontline operators are transmitting battlefield coverage directly from active operations. The images you are about to see were captured during recent combat deployments across the region.

These transmissions come directly from the front.

The battle for the Bay Area has begun.

2026.7.27 Change List on Experimental

This Experimental update includes another substantial round of performance work, combat improvements, balance adjustments, crash fixes, interface updates, and visual polish. The larger Fog of War overhaul remains under active development and is not included as a completed feature in this update.

CERC Ops is now live and in the wild!

Thousands of players have loaded into CERC Ops since its release, with many already using it throughout full gameplay sessions. The response across Steam, Discord, YouTube, and private messages has been genuinely inspiring. Access it here

I have dreamed about building a companion tool like this for years, so seeing players immediately understand its value has been incredible. Some of you are using it to coordinate serious operations, while others are recruiting friends, assigning them commander roles, and shouting instructions across the room. We have even heard from people whose friends purchased Cepheus Protocol specifically so they could join these coordinated sessions.

Thank you to everyone who gave CERC Ops a chance, shared feedback, reported issues, or suggested ways to improve it. That feedback has already led to another quiet round of improvements over the weekend.

CERC Ops can now display more critical information while an operation is underway, including current deployment windows, total population, DNA cache data, time of day, news updates, the activity log, and chat history.

Development and support will continue during weekends for CERC Ops as we evaluate how players are using the tool. There may not be a massive amount left to add to the website itself beyond further interface improvements, but we will continue listening closely and expanding it wherever the community identifies real value.

Some players also did not realize that Cepheus Protocol must currently be running on the Experimental branch for CERC Ops to work during the early testing phases its in right now. If you encounter unusual technical issues or need help getting connected, please join our Discord and let us know. Once we merge the patch over to public in the next week or so everyone will benefit from the tool!

Thank you again for the incredible response, the actionable feedback, and the sheer enthusiasm surrounding CERC Ops. We are excited to see how you continue using it throughout the coming weeks.

Performance

• Reworked several structure, infection, health, weapon, and unit systems to reduce individual timers and repeated updates to improve performance in large scale games.

• Added new world subsystems to batch recurring simulation work and improve performance during larger sessions.

• Optimized structure and world building dormancy to reduce unnecessary network activity reducing the stain in mid-late game

• Fixed an issue where visibility updates could unnecessarily wake dormant structures causing network spikes.

• Improved build progress replication for clients so the build progress bar appears more reliably and Skycrane network relevancy during structure delivery so they dont desync for clients

• Reduced processing costs associated with projectiles, weapons, turrets, ragdolls, corpses, and temporary actors.

• Improved weapon reset logic and melee cooldown handling that was causing performance spikes in large sessions.

• Reworked Animation Quality settings to provide better scalability across Low through Epic presets.

• Updated Infected LOD settings to improve performance at higher unit counts.

• Optimized the update frequency of several weapon muzzle effects to improve performance.

Combat and Infected AI

• Improved Infected melee behavior so attackers resume attacking more quickly after their cooldown completes.

• Reduced unnecessary delays between repeated melee attacks against stationary targets.

• Infected can now perform opportunistic melee attacks when a valid target enters range while moving.

• Improved melee targeting against walls and other large structures.

• Fixed host melee animations sometimes playing twice.

• Fixed the Spine Thrower applying the wrong damage type and dealing excessive damage to certain unit types.

• Improved the reliability of projectiles that detonate near aerial targets.

• Fixed projectile collision and friendly fire issues involving gate structures.

• Fixed a projectile regression that could incorrectly cause friendly fire.

CERC Balance

• Increased damage across a broad selection of CERC infantry weapons.

• Corrected the SCAR L and HK416A7 after they were missed during the initial infantry weapon update.

• Increased the effectiveness of several CERC weapons against Infected structures.

• Increased the effectiveness of the Shawnee and Behemoth against structures.

• Adjusted Sparrow M260 and Hellfire weapon balance.

• Corrected the Sparrow Hellfire doctrine unlock.

• Reduced the population cost of the Charon and Shawnee.

• Adjusted the population requirements of the Abrams and Cerberus 105mm.

• Reduced the construction cost of the Evacuation Site.

• Reduced the construction cost of the Ammunition Tent.

• Increased the starting money and SOC income provided by the Director's Cut preset.

• Reduced the Juggernaut respawn rate.

• Corrected the Security unit to use the intended MP5 configuration.

Vehicles, Aircraft, and Weapons

• Temporarily disabled Wheel/Tire physics when a ground vehicle dies because of instability within the Chaos physics system. They just "self destroy now" while we investigate this

• Updated vehicle explosion audio and several affected vehicle configurations.

• Improved Sparrow, Charon, Blackhawk, Apache, and related minigun behavior.

• Updated M134 muzzle effects and firing audio.

• Improved TOW missile visuals, audio, backblast effects, cable presentation, and unfolding animation.

• Improved Dragon Gunship tracer visibility.

• Fixed the Dragon Gunship area indicator using the wrong center icon.

• Slightly stiffened the Springbok suspension.

• Fixed incorrect mesh configurations on the Merlin and Evacuation Helicopter.

• Improved helicopter weapon focus behavior when only secondary or tertiary weapons are equipped.

Civilian Administration

• Holding Cells can now indicate when a scanned infected civilian is inside.

• Infection scan status is now saved and replicated more reliably.

• Fixed the Euthanization Tent popup failing to identify civilians who were infected but had not fully converted before death.

• Improved several civilian administration and evacuation edge cases.

• Improved multiplayer reliability for civilian administration systems.

User Interface and Companion Support

• Added the CERC OPS interface to the pause menu.

• Added support for copying local connection information without permanently revealing the address.

• Connection information is hidden again when leaving the relevant menu.

• Improved CERC OPS layout, text, link sizing, and menu presentation.

• Fixed spacing and padding within the pause menu options.

• Added Day, DNA, Money, Next Call In, total map population, and logging support to the Companion App.

• Fixed DNA visuals remaining visible on clients when cinematic mode or the DNA visibility option disabled them.

• Fixed the numeric garrison display appearing in incorrect contexts.

• Restricted startup options in Custom Game Options to the main menu.

• Improved RTS camera zoom behavior across different camera angles.

• Fixed formation completion behavior that could incorrectly rotate units after reaching their destination.

Crash and Stability Fixes

• Fixed multiple crashes involving queued Attack Move orders.

• Fixed a crash involving gate structures.

• Fixed a crash involving Infected biomass currency data.

• Fixed a ragdoll subsystem timing issue that could conflict with corpse limit management.

• Fixed vehicle parachutes occasionally falling beneath the map without being cleaned up.

• Fixed a Juggernaut vehicle throw issue introduced by projectile initialization changes.

• Improved build progress replication for clients.

• Improved network relevancy and dormancy handling for structures and delivered buildings.

Maps, Visuals, and Audio

• Continued environment detail work across North San Francisco.

• Updated Oak Bay Bridge meshes, ramps, and surrounding Treasure Island roads.

• Updated navigation and collision across Iron Wake and other affected maps.

• Added missing damage volumes in Iron Wake.

• Updated several vehicle materials and environmental assets.

• Improved vehicle engine audio attenuation.

• Updated the Alcatraz roof material as part of ongoing environment work.

Thank you to everyone continuing to report issues and provide detailed feedback. We are continuing to prioritize late game performance, simulation stability, combat reliability, and the larger Fog of War overhaul.

Current Development Focus

With Civilian Evacuation now live on the public branch, our focus has shifted toward improving performance, stability, and quality of life before moving into the next major roadmap milestone. Current work includes structure blueprints, reusable unit composition presets for combinations such as Assault, Heavy, and Spec Ops squads, improved unit selection, RTS camera fixes, interface polish, multiplayer stability, save/load reliability, and general optimization based on community feedback.

Performance is our number-one concern right now. One of the largest engineering projects underway is converting Fog of War visuals to run on the GPU. Testing in larger simulations showed that the previous CPU-based implementation was not viable at the scale we are targeting, so the system has been rebuilt and is continuing to receive patches and optimization work. This conversion provides a much stronger foundation for larger battles and future gameplay systems. The goal is to release it sometime this week check out the 100th episode below for details on how it works!

Looking Ahead: Escalation

Once the current quality-of-life, bug-fixing, and performance pass reaches its goals, development will transition into the Escalation roadmap phase. The current estimate is to begin pushing heavily into this work in early August, starting with Chelsey and then moving into the standard infected AI overhaul.

This phase will focus on improving infected intelligence, movement, expansion, combat behavior, and progression. From there, development will continue into new infected variants, mutations, Lieutenants, sub-zone control, and the broader late-game threat represented by the Leviathan. Operator improvements, RTS polish, and continued work on San Francisco North will also continue alongside this effort.

The goal is not simply to add more infected. The goal is to create an enemy that expands intelligently, responds to the player, evolves throughout the match, and creates stronger pressure from the early game through the late game.

You can catch up on the latest CERC HQ below to see the full breakdown for yourself:

Episode 100 covers the new GPU-powered Fog of War system, the first look at CERC OPS, ongoing performance work, vehicle destruction improvements, networking updates, balance changes, interface work, and what the team is preparing to tackle next.

🎙️ Join Us This Saturday for CERC HQ

🕔 When: Weekly Saturdays at 7:00 PM EST

💬 What is CERC HQ?

CERC HQ is our weekly development podcast covering the latest progress, current technical challenges, upcoming roadmap work, and community questions. This Saturday, we will be discussing the performance push, continued Fog of War optimization, quality-of-life improvements, and the transition into the infected overhaul planned for the next roadmap phase.

View Live Event

📺 Where to Watch:

YouTube Livestream

Discord Server

Steam Page

🎤 Join the Live Q&A! We will be answering questions from the community during the stream, so bring your questions about performance, CERC OPS, Fog of War, quality-of-life improvements, and the upcoming infected work.

📺 Missed a Stream? No Worries!

YouTube VOD Playlist

Spotify Podcast Archive VODs may take up to 24 hours to appear.

A New Way to Monitor the Battlefield

This Saturday, during the 100th episode of CERC HQ, we will hold the world reveal of CERC Ops, a new tactical companion built specifically for Cepheus Protocol.

CERC Ops connects directly to an active game session and provides a live operational view of the battlefield on a phone, tablet, laptop, second monitor, or console browser. It is designed to give players access to critical battlefield information without interrupting the main game.

Live Battlefield Information on Another Screen

CERC Ops allows you to monitor units across the map, select and follow individual forces, inspect live zone conditions, track evacuation progress, review operational information, and draw up battle plans while the game continues in real time. During Saturday’s broadcast, we will demonstrate how CERC Ops connects to Cepheus Protocol, how its live unit tracking works, and how it can be used during a full multiplayer operation.

Try the Demo Before Saturday

You do not have to wait until the reveal to explore the interface. Visit the CERC Ops website below, open Live Link, select the demo, and begin drawing up your own mock battle plans: Open the CERC Ops Demo Following Saturday’s CERC HQ broadcast, we will open access for Cepheus Protocol players to connect CERC Ops directly to their own active game sessions and share their feedback with us.

Compatibility Note CERC Ops does not currently work on iPhone or iPad. Apple devices present an additional technical hurdle with the local connection method used by the system, and we are still working toward a solution. All other platforms and browsers should work fine.

Join us Saturday for the 100th episode of CERC HQ and the world reveal of CERC Ops.

🎙️ Next CERC HQ – Livestream Details

🕔 When: Weekly Saturdays – 7 PM EST (New Time!)

💬 What is CERC HQ:

Welcome to Cepheus Protocol HQ, your ultimate weekly briefing on all things Cepheus Protocol! Join the Halcyon Winds team as we explore the latest updates, reveal behind-the-scenes development stories, and answer community questions about the game. From exciting new features to design challenges, this is your all-access pass to the evolving world of Cepheus Protocol. Tune in every week and stay ahead of the outbreak!

• Co-op Progress

• Total Revamp based on Community Feedback

• Level Design Updates

📺 Where to Watch:

• YouTube Livestream

• Discord Server

• Steam Page

🎤 Don’t miss our Live Q&A! We’ll be answering questions from the community during the stream.

📺 Missed a Stream? No Worries!

• YouTube VOD Playlist

• Spotify Podcast Archive (VODs may take 24 hours to appear)

The virus is loose across the Bay Area. Flashpoints are erupting across the peninsula as entire districts fall into chaos and infected swarms push deeper into civilian zones. CERC forces are already in the field. Embedded military reporters and frontline operators are transmitting battlefield coverage directly from active operations. The images above were captured during recent combat deployments across the region. These transmissions come directly from the front. The battle for the Bay Area has begun.

Core Improvements and Community Audit

As outlined during CERC HQ on Saturday, we are continuing to refine the core of Cepheus Protocol across performance, pathfinding, system scalability, and quality of life. A substantial portion of this work is already live on Experimental. Feedback through Steam and Discord has reported that the current build is already substantially smoother and more stable, with some players describing the difference as light years ahead of where the game was only a few weeks ago. Those gains are available to test now, but they are not the end of the current pass. Additional improvements are coming throughout Tuesday and Wednesday as we continue profiling the remaining bottlenecks and stress testing larger sessions.

This Update at a Glance

• Substantial performance gains already live on Experimental

• Additional performance work arriving throughout Tuesday and Wednesday

• Fog of war processing moving toward the GPU

• Further pathfinding and collision refinement

• Managed systems replacing large numbers of independent timers

• Weapon, projectile, vehicle, and visual effect optimization

• Class and ability cycling inside mixed selections

• Saved building layouts and squad composition presets

• A community audit for remaining bugs and quality of life issues

Already Live on Experimental

Recent Experimental builds have already reduced several of the largest performance hotspots found during our earlier stress tests. Parts of the combat loop, weapon processing, projectile updates, character handling, and independent unit timers have either been reduced substantially or removed from the primary list of frame time offenders. Pathfinding, collision, muzzle flashes, projectile effects, helicopter visuals, turret effects, and several Niagara systems have also received improvements. The current build gives us a much stronger baseline, while the remaining fog of war spikes, vehicle costs, and extreme late game cases continue to be addressed.

Current Performance Pass

Smarter Fog of War

Fog of war remains one of the largest systems in the current performance pass. Larger populations create more visibility checks, and those checks can stack together during the same frame. We are moving more of that workload toward the GPU so the CPU remains available for AI, pathfinding, combat, vehicles, and replication. The replacement also uses prepared height and topology data from permanent world structures. Instead of repeatedly tracing through the same building or rock face, the system can reject impossible sight lines early and reserve detailed checks for corners, rooftops, openings, and elevation changes.

Vertical Visibility and Scouting

The same work allows fog of war to better understand vertical space. A unit standing at street level should not automatically reveal everything happening on a rooftop simply because it falls inside the unit's horizontal vision radius. Helicopters, scout drones, elevated infantry, and properly positioned observers will become more important for revealing rooftops and concealed threats. This also creates a stronger foundation for future ambush behavior from infected and civilian factions. \

Technical Areas Included in the Current Pass

• Moving more visibility processing from the CPU to the GPU

• Using prepared height and topology data for permanent structures

• Skipping visibility traces when an obstruction already makes sight impossible

• Separating rooftops and lower street levels into more accurate visibility spaces

• Reducing synchronized fog of war spikes during high population sessions

• Testing the replacement during heavy combat, long sessions, and large infected spreads

\

Managed Unit Systems

Characters, vehicles, weapons, and components previously maintained large numbers of independent timers for systems such as fuel, health, inventory, abilities, gas exposure, and combat state. During larger sessions, thousands of otherwise small updates could align on the same frame and create a sudden spike. A large portion of that work has already been moved into shared managers and subsystems on Experimental. These systems can distribute updates across multiple frames while tracking the actual time elapsed, preserving the intended result without forcing every unit to process simultaneously.

Weapons, Vehicles, and Visual Effects

Stress testing also exposed cases where hundreds of muzzle flashes, projectiles, and Niagara effects could activate during the same frame. Several of these effects are already cheaper on Experimental through reduced update rates and revised emitters, with more work continuing on extreme combat cases. Large battlefield elements such as missiles, artillery shells, mortar rounds, and other visible threats will remain high priority. Smaller visual effects can be evaluated more aggressively based on distance, visibility, camera position, and whether a player could reasonably observe them.

Turret Reliability

Turret targeting is being separated from visual animation frequency. Previously, a turret could become slower or less reliable when it was off screen or when the animation budget reduced how often its mesh updated. The new approach calculates targeting through gameplay logic while allowing the visible turret to follow for presentation. Weapons can still preserve deliberate setup and firing delays, but their effectiveness will no longer depend on whether the host is looking at them.

Landscape Removal and Long Sessions

Large/Long sessions cooperative or single player can involve thousands of removed trees and other landscape objects. The previous comparison path became increasingly expensive as that removed object list grew over time. That system is being reorganized so newly removed objects can be identified without repeatedly searching the complete list. This primarily targets long sessions where the map has been heavily altered.

Pathfinding and Map Work

Navigation Improvements

Broader collision and navigation problems involving rock faces, terrain transitions, and several map areas have improved substantially. These changes are already present on Experimental, and the remaining reports are increasingly tied to specific layouts rather than widespread navigation failures. The remaining edge cases commonly involve ramps, bridges, formations, structures, terrain layouts, or unusual player built configurations. Save files remain extremely useful because these failures can depend on the exact units, orders, formation, and map state involved.

San Francisco North

Work has resumed on North San Francisco now that the broader navigation issues on the other maps have stabilized. The road network is being rebuilt through a more optimized static mesh workflow rather than relying heavily on the older spline system. The updated process takes longer to author, but the resulting roads can be instanced and streamed more predictably. This gives the map a more scalable foundation as it moves toward a fully playable state.

Quality of Life Improvements

Alongside the performance work, we are preparing another wave of quality of life improvements focused on reducing repetitive inputs and getting players back into combat faster.

Selection Management

Remove individual units without clearing the entire selection. Players will be able to remove a specific unit from an active selection while keeping the rest of the force selected. This provides more direct control when one unit needs to be separated from a larger group.

Class and Ability Cycling

Access each class and its abilities from inside a mixed selection. Players will be able to cycle between the unit classes represented inside the current selection without breaking the force apart. For example, a selection containing Assaults and Heavies could switch between the Assault ability set and the Heavy ability set while keeping the entire army selected.

Saved Building Presets

Save commonly used building arrangements as reusable layouts. Players will be able to save checkpoints, defensive positions, production areas, evacuation facilities, fortified perimeters, and other layouts they regularly use. Terrain, available space, roads, and zone ownership will still matter. The preset provides a reusable starting arrangement that can be positioned and adjusted for the current situation.

Saved Squad Compositions

Save complete production and loadout templates for the combat teams you use most often. These are reusable production blueprints rather than permanent battlefield groups. A saved composition can remember:

• The unit classes and quantities

• Primary and secondary weapons

• Individual unit loadouts

• Selected abilities and equipment

The existing loadout system will still allow players to save configurations for individual unit classes. Saved squad compositions sit above that system by combining several configured units into one named production preset. For example, Assault Squad Alpha could contain several Assault units with shotguns, a Heavy with a specific weapon setup, and a Medic with the desired equipment and abilities. Selecting that preset would order the required units and apply the saved configurations automatically. Instead of reopening several production menus and rebuilding the same force manually, the player could restore the complete composition through one preset. Different compositions could be created for close quarters assaults, long range engagements, evacuation security, anti armor operations, scouting, rapid response, or base defense. The goal is to preserve the depth of unit customization while removing the repetitive setup work. Rebuilding a frequently used combat team should take one selection instead of another 30 to 60 seconds of menu navigation.

Rollout

Some of these improvements will arrive sooner than others. Features requiring additional interface, production, save data, or multiplayer support will be introduced as their supporting systems are completed.

Community Audit

We want to use the remainder of the month to identify additional issues while the team is already working inside these core systems. If you are experiencing persistent pathfinding failures, performance degradation, targeting problems, unreliable abilities, selection issues, interface friction, or another repeatable problem, please create a Steam discussion or Discord report.

The Most Useful Reports Include

• A save file from shortly before or during the issue

• The map and approximate location

• Screenshots or video

• Steps that reliably reproduce the problem

• The number and types of units involved

• Any relevant custom game settings

Save files allow us to load the exact session state and inspect why a unit became stuck, failed to target something, selected an incorrect route, stopped responding, or caused an unexpected performance spike. Create a Steam Discussion

Updated Development Roadmap

The screenshots below show the updated website and the way our current roadmap phases are being presented. The complete roadmap contains the full breakdown, but the immediate direction is summarized below.

Current Focus

• Performance profiling and system scalability

• Fog of war replacement and visibility improvements

• Pathfinding and navigation edge cases

• Selection controls and quality of life work

  • Would you want Workshop support for sharing base blueprint designs? Vote here!

• Vehicle, turret, projectile, and visual effect optimization

• Continued North San Francisco development

Coming Next

• Infected intelligence and decision making

• Improved behavior around defenses and complicated environments

• Chelsey and primary hive improvements

• New infected variants and lieutenant progression

• Late game infected pressure and balance

• Further custom game and difficulty controls

• Operator control, driving, logistics, and vehicle interaction

• Expanded tutorial and player onboarding

Later Development

• Dynamic Civilian Groups and Sub Factions

• World Events

• LHA6 and LCAC

View the Full Cepheus Protocol Roadmap

CERC HQ Episode Summary

The latest CERC HQ focused on strengthening the technical foundation required for larger battles, smarter AI, and more reliable long term sessions. A significant amount of that work is already available on Experimental, with additional improvements scheduled throughout Tuesday and Wednesday. The episode covers the fog of war replacement, managed unit systems, projectile and visual effect optimization, vehicle and turret processing, landscape removal, pathfinding, North San Francisco, infected balance, new infected models, helicopter work, and the next phase of infected intelligence development. Watch the complete episode below for the full technical discussion and development breakdown.

CERC HQ Weekly Development Briefing

When: Saturdays at 7 PM EST CERC HQ is our weekly development briefing covering the latest builds, current development work, internal testing, community reports, technical challenges, and upcoming priorities. Each episode includes direct development footage, behind the scenes explanations, roadmap discussion, and a live community question and answer section.

Where to Watch

• YouTube Livestream

• Discord Server

• Cepheus Protocol on Steam

Previous Episodes

• YouTube CERC HQ Archive

• Spotify Podcast Archive

Thank you to everyone continuing to test Experimental, submit save files, and provide detailed feedback. Experimental is already substantially ahead of where it was only weeks ago, and those reports are helping us push the remaining systems even further.

The virus is loose across the Bay Area. Flashpoints are erupting across the peninsula as entire districts fall into chaos and infected swarms push deeper into civilian zones.

CERC forces are already in the field.

Embedded military reporters and frontline operators are transmitting battlefield coverage directly from active operations. The images you are about to see were captured during recent combat deployments across the region.

These transmissions come directly from the front.

The battle for the Bay Area has begun.

2026.7.11 Change list on Experimental :

Performance

• Added new subsystem optimizations to significantly improve mid and late game performance.

• Reduced CPU overhead across AI, vehicles, projectiles, animations, and gameplay systems.

• Continued optimization of visual effects and core gameplay systems.

Helicopters

• Improved helicopter AI movement, landing, and combat behavior.

• Improved fast rope positioning and landing accuracy.

• Added a new approach system allowing infected to properly attack landed helicopters.

• Fixed several helicopter movement and animation issues.

Movement and AI

• Continued development of the Move Queue system.

• Improved transitions between queued movement orders.

• Improved Attack Move behavior and mixed movement queues.

• Improved vehicle formations and pathfinding.

• Fixed several situations where units could become stuck or behave unexpectedly.

Infected Birds

• Improved infected bird synchronization in multiplayer.

• Improved bird save and load support.

• Added an early version of bird death effects.

• Improved bird attacks against structures and helipads.

Vehicles

• Updated vehicle destruction effects.

• Improved treaded vehicle animation and movement behavior.

• Expanded vehicle engine sound positioning.

• Improved MLRS missile effects.

Camera and UI

• Improved camera zoom smoothing and responsiveness.

• Improved camera follow and minimap camera behavior.

• Continued improvements to Steam Workshop preset support.

Maps and Environment

• Improved navigation across Calypso and other maps.

• Added additional AI navigation support around cliffs.

• Fixed several lighting, collision, and environment issues.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed turrets firing while unpowered.

• Fixed multiplayer issues with the Juggernaut vehicle throw attack.

• Fixed several helicopter, vehicle, structure, and save system issues.

• Added general gameplay polish and stability improvements throughout the game.

The Next 60 Days of Cepheus Protocol...

CERC HQ EP. 98 Summary:

This week’s update is all about making the RTS experience smoother, faster, and more responsive with major improvements to movement, formations, performance, and AI.

The new movement queue system now supports chaining unlimited move and attack orders while improving coordination between infantry and vehicles. Formation behavior continues to be refined, with work focused on edge cases, better pathfinding feedback, and keeping units moving naturally instead of stopping at every waypoint. Helicopters and vehicles are also receiving the same queue support alongside ongoing animation and movement improvements.

Flying units received a major visual and performance pass, including larger bird swarms, optimized flocking behavior, and improved destruction effects. Vehicle visuals continue to evolve with new death effects, fire, explosions, and future plans for destructible parts, while new infected variants, including armored enemies and infected dogs, are actively being developed to expand early, mid, and late-game encounters.

A huge amount of work also went into performance optimizations by batching AI systems, vehicle logic, gas simulation, and combat processing to improve large-scale battles. Additional improvements include new difficulty presets, Steam Workshop support for custom gameplay presets, UI redesigns, camera refinements, multiplayer browser updates, and balance plans aimed at making late-game infected far more dangerous and unpredictable. Experimental also includes numerous bug fixes and performance tweaks while the team continues polishing these systems before shifting focus to the infected AI overhaul.

Next week’s focus is finishing the movement queue, formation polish, camera improvements, UI updates, and remaining quality-of-life fixes before development transitions into a major push on infected AI, new enemy types, balance improvements, tutorials, and additional gameplay systems.

You can catch up on the latest CERC HQ below if you want to see the full breakdown for yourself: The Next 60 Days

Over the next 30 to 60 days, the focus is pushing every major gameplay system forward beyond what existed before in the original build.

• Civilian Evacuation polish and bug fixing

• Formation AI improvements

• Infected intelligence improvements

• New infected variants

• Lieutenants and late-game infected progression

• Leviathan progression

• Operator improvements

• San Francisco North expansion work

• RTS control improvements

• Save/load and multiplayer stability improvements

Civilian Evacuation Progress

The evacuation system has reached a major gameplay milestone. Players can now complete the full civilian rescue loop from intake to evacuation, with supporting systems now coming online around it.

• Functional intake processing

• Evacuation buses

• Infection scanning upgrades

• Doctrine progression

• Direct civilian movement into evacuation zones

• Upgrades to streamline civilian processing

• Options to skip holding cells

• Improved evacuation efficiency as your operation grows

Infected Rework

The infected are also receiving a major pass as part of this phase of development. Infection spread has been rebalanced, infected structure construction is now visible before activation, and late-game pressure is being tuned to reduce the frustrating “whack-a-mole” feeling players were running into. Endless Horde Mode is also available as a custom option for players who want the infection to keep spreading forever.

What Comes Next

The next major push is about taking the systems now coming online and making them stronger, smarter, and more stable. Expect continued work on formation AI, infected behavior, new infected threats, Operator improvements, San Francisco North, evacuation polish, and the broader late-game progression loop. As always, Experimental builds may contain rough edges, bugs, and unfinished content. Player reports are extremely helpful as these systems continue moving toward the default branch.

🎙️ Next CERC HQ – Livestream Details

🕔 When: Weekly Saturdays – 7 PM EST (New Time!)

💬 What is CERC HQ:

Welcome to Cepheus Protocol HQ, your ultimate weekly briefing on all things Cepheus Protocol! Join the Halcyon Winds team as we explore the latest updates, reveal behind-the-scenes development stories, and answer community questions about the game. From exciting new features to design challenges, this is your all-access pass to the evolving world of Cepheus Protocol. Tune in every week and stay ahead of the outbreak!

• Co-op Progress

• Total Revamp based on Community Feedback

• Level Design Updates

📺 Where to Watch:

• YouTube Livestream

• Discord Server

• Steam Page

🎤 Don’t miss our Live Q&A! We’ll be answering questions from the community during the stream.

📺 Missed a Stream? No Worries!

• YouTube VOD Playlist

• Spotify Podcast Archive (VODs may take 24 hours to appear)

The virus is loose across the Bay Area. Flashpoints are erupting across the peninsula as entire districts fall into chaos and infected swarms push deeper into civilian zones.

CERC forces are already in the field.

Embedded military reporters and frontline operators are transmitting battlefield coverage directly from active operations. The images you are about to see were captured during recent combat deployments across the region.

These transmissions come directly from the front.

The battle for the Bay Area has begun.

2026.6.19.5 Change list:

• Fixed an issue with Discord authorization that could repeatedly prompt players to log in after enabling Discord integration.

• Added a new launcher experience (can be skipped via launch options) designed to improve communication with players, provide a clear view of current development priorities and roadmap progress, and highlight CERC HQ broadcasts to increase transparency and keep the community informed about ongoing development.

• Added Discord Rich Presence support, allowing friends to see your current game status, including what mode you're playing and how many players are in your session. This is an initial implementation that provides basic gameplay and session visibility through Discord.

• Some cleanup to unit mouse-hovering logic to try to resolve mouse hover visuals remaining 'on' when you're not mousing over a unit

• Improved unit movement recovery near cliffs and rocky terrain, helping units automatically find their way back to valid paths if they become displaced or stuck during movement.

• Fixed rare cases where units in large formations could become stranded on rocks or terrain edges while navigating around obstacles.

• Fixed a Targeting issue with the MLRS

• Improved unit pathfinding and navigation around cliffs and rock formations across all maps, fixing numerous cases where units could become stuck, pushed off the NavMesh, or have difficulty moving through congested terrain.

• Created a Console command Cheat Sheet for those that want to change the weather live here!

  • https://steamcommunity.com/app/979640/discussions/0/573793023877693507/

The Next 60 Days of Cepheus Protocol...

Civilian Evacuation is now playable from start to finish, and today’s update is focused on hotfixes, cleanup, and what comes next for the Rebuild.

If you missed yesterday’s post covering one of the biggest updates to ever touch the Cepheus Protocol Rebuild, you can read it here: CERC HQ EP 91 Summary:

The evacuation system just hit a major milestone. For the first time, players can now play through the entire civilian rescue loop from beginning to end. This includes fully functional intake processing, evacuation buses, infection scanning upgrades, doctrine progression, and direct civilian movement into evacuation zones.

New doctrine upgrades now let you streamline processing, skip holding cells, and massively improve evacuation efficiency as your operation grows.

The infected are also getting a major overhaul. Infection spread has been rebalanced, structure construction is now visible before activation, and the late game is being tuned to reduce the frustrating “whack-a-mole” pressure players were running into. Endless Horde Mode is now available as a custom option for players who want the infection to spread forever.

Vehicle pathfinding, helicopters, gates, airstrikes, radio systems, and multiplayer syncing all received major fixes this week. The team also reworked a large number of save/load issues, improved performance for large sessions, and added better RTS management tools for handling evacuation zones and civilian flow.

Next up is a full push on formation AI, infected intelligence, new infected variants, infected lieutenants(Her Operators), Infected Leviathan (Late game super unit), Operator improvements, and the massive San Francisco North map expansion.

The goal over the next 60 days is to push every major gameplay system far beyond what existed ever before.

You can catch up on the latest CERC HQ below if you want to see the full breakdown for yourself:

The Next 60 Days

Over the next 30 to 60 days, the focus is pushing every major gameplay system forward beyond what existed before in the original build.

• Civilian Evacuation polish and bug fixing

• Formation AI improvements

• Infected intelligence improvements

• New infected variants

• Lieutenants and late-game infected progression

• Leviathan progression

• Operator improvements

• San Francisco North expansion work

• RTS control improvements

• Save/load and multiplayer stability improvements

Civilian Evacuation Progress

The evacuation system has reached a major gameplay milestone. Players can now complete the full civilian rescue loop from intake to evacuation, with supporting systems now coming online around it.

• Functional intake processing

• Evacuation buses

• Infection scanning upgrades

• Doctrine progression

• Direct civilian movement into evacuation zones

• Upgrades to streamline civilian processing

• Options to skip holding cells

• Improved evacuation efficiency as your operation grows

Infected Rework

The infected are also receiving a major pass as part of this phase of development. Infection spread has been rebalanced, infected structure construction is now visible before activation, and late-game pressure is being tuned to reduce the frustrating “whack-a-mole” feeling players were running into. Endless Horde Mode is also available as a custom option for players who want the infection to keep spreading forever.

What Comes Next

The next major push is about taking the systems now coming online and making them stronger, smarter, and more stable. Expect continued work on formation AI, infected behavior, new infected threats, Operator improvements, San Francisco North, evacuation polish, and the broader late-game progression loop. As always, Experimental builds may contain rough edges, bugs, and unfinished content. Player reports are extremely helpful as these systems continue moving toward the default branch.

🎙️ Next CERC HQ – Livestream Details

🕔 When: Weekly Saturdays – 7 PM EST (New Time!)

💬 What is CERC HQ:

Welcome to Cepheus Protocol HQ, your ultimate weekly briefing on all things Cepheus Protocol! Join the Halcyon Winds team as we explore the latest updates, reveal behind-the-scenes development stories, and answer community questions about the game. From exciting new features to design challenges, this is your all-access pass to the evolving world of Cepheus Protocol. Tune in every week and stay ahead of the outbreak!

• Co-op Progress

• Total Revamp based on Community Feedback

• Level Design Updates

📺 Where to Watch:

• YouTube Livestream

• Discord Server

• Steam Page

🎤 Don’t miss our Live Q&A! We’ll be answering questions from the community during the stream.

📺 Missed a Stream? No Worries!

• YouTube VOD Playlist

• Spotify Podcast Archive (VODs may take 24 hours to appear)

The virus is loose across the Bay Area. Flashpoints are erupting across the peninsula as entire districts fall into chaos and infected swarms push deeper into civilian zones.

CERC forces are already in the field.

Embedded military reporters and frontline operators are transmitting battlefield coverage directly from active operations. The images you are about to see were captured during recent combat deployments across the region.

These transmissions come directly from the front.

The battle for the Bay Area has begun.

2026.6.18.2 Change list:

• Speculative crash fix for https://discord.com/channels/469412014427602944/1517178563135144120/1517209529715134716

• Added Discord API + Discord Integration

• Weather System added (Hail, Thunder, Fog & Clouds based on time of day)

• Updated some of the longer hover tips for Civilian Intake Bus states to use newline to help them fit

• Fixed a major flaw with 'edge detection during turn in place' for vehicles that was causing vehicles to often fail to exit 'turn in place' state near low-rooftops (like civilian intake bus garages)

• Fixed a landscape-able Forklift mesh that was reporting not having a proper nav area class assigned

• Fixed an in-editor warning about landscapable when driving near/on the 'post' left behind from certain types of shattered light posts

• Adjusted some evac helicopter landing/move to land logic to stop a 'conflict of interest' which causes the helicopter to reissue a move order (and get into a loop) if landing over evac pad while being slightly off-center

• Adjusted the Map Border collision profile to properly block construction (so you can't build an evac site 'off the playable area' and run into bugs because of it)

• Set up Winter to be part of the initial squad in Calypso Pandemic (she was missing)

• Formation System: added some 'adjust to ground level' logic while formation is in motion, fixing up some stuck cases when units are moving in formation up a large ramp/cliff

• Fixed a duplication bug when building on zone borders

• Changed the unstable map being selected by default when you opened pandemic as a map selection

• Updated Localizations from latest text/new options added

• Added the ability to turn off Infected Kill Cash Reward in Custom game option. Meaning SOCS/Evacuation are the only methods to gain cash

• Added Gameplay Options for disabling XP Markers in RTS/Operator

• Updated infected overhead UI to more quickly respect Cinematic Mode

• Adjusted 'overhead player UI' to more reliably hide when enabling cinematic mode

• Combat Flares no longer renders the eagle icon over them

• Details Panel: Updated to state 'under construction' if selected unit isn't finished building yet =Also lists out power generated/required text differently if under construction

• Improvements to Unit Details Panel's 'single unit display' mode to properly update if you have a 'structure under construction' selected and it finishes construction while still selected

• Improvements to 'power out!' UX for critical structures (Guard Tower/Turrets) -Details panel also updated to be more reliable and visible in listing power outage on selected structure

• Fixed a bug that was restricting tower guards from firing fully 360 degrees

• Some adjustments to Intake Bus 'drop off at zone with Intake off' (after moving to drop off intake at a Zone that *had* it on while we were on the way there) to try to reduce stuck cases

• Fix: if intake is disabled in a Zone and civilians were still waiting on it, once they want to go to a facility that is not available, they will instead be sent back into a world building (to free up space)

• Various Vehicle Movement/Pathing Performance improvements

• Improved some edge cases for vehicles where they could get confused and erroneously reissue a move order

• Added Vehicle Edge/Fall detection so they don't drive off inclines they cannot get back up. I.E like falling off bridges

• Improvements to Vehicle rotate in place to stop the "dancing"

• Hand scanner idle updated

• Fixed idle fire pose for RTS units

• New landscapable objects added based on community suggestions from previously unremovable objects in various maps

• Improved how the Day/Night system "rotates" for weather changes visually

• Reduced Infected Bird count from 256 to 100 per swarm, this is purely visual and does not affect balance.

• Fixed an issue with Infected bird rendering to further improve performance.

• Added a global build limit of 12 for Evacuation Sites

• Added a per-Zone build limit of 3 for Euthanization Buildings

• Changed objectives list to turn 'completed objectives' to green instead of gray

• Backup logic added for when a Civilian fails to move to a world building due to there being no space left =And 'save validation' logic for Civilian Faction Manager post load to fix up 'orphaned' civvies who were in such a state before the above fix

• Adjusted description of the Custom Game Option 'Attack Interval Override' to not be so verbose that it goes offscreen

• Set up basic hover tip text for each 'state' Intake Bus's details panel can be in, so mousing over it will give more details about what the Intake Bus's current state means

• Fixes for biomass/infected population tracking for infected

• Objectives ticker added and binded to toggle with F7

• Updated Calypso water to use the proper water system.

• Set up 'Civilian Processing at Capacity' status for Intake Buses to be more descriptive

• Set up non-player controlled ground vehicles (like the Intake Bus) to use bStopOnOverlap, unlike player controlled ground vehicles, so they do not get stuck

• Added Victory Screen after all Pods/Chelsey is killed

The Next 60 Days of Cepheus Protocol...

Civilian Evacuation is now playable from start to finish, and today’s update is focused on hotfixes, cleanup, and what comes next for the Rebuild.

If you missed yesterday’s post covering one of the biggest updates to ever touch the Cepheus Protocol Rebuild, you can read it here: CERC HQ EP 91 Summary:

The evacuation system just hit a major milestone. For the first time, players can now play through the entire civilian rescue loop from beginning to end. This includes fully functional intake processing, evacuation buses, infection scanning upgrades, doctrine progression, and direct civilian movement into evacuation zones.

New doctrine upgrades now let you streamline processing, skip holding cells, and massively improve evacuation efficiency as your operation grows.

The infected are also getting a major overhaul. Infection spread has been rebalanced, structure construction is now visible before activation, and the late game is being tuned to reduce the frustrating “whack-a-mole” pressure players were running into. Endless Horde Mode is now available as a custom option for players who want the infection to spread forever.

Vehicle pathfinding, helicopters, gates, airstrikes, radio systems, and multiplayer syncing all received major fixes this week. The team also reworked a large number of save/load issues, improved performance for large sessions, and added better RTS management tools for handling evacuation zones and civilian flow.

Next up is a full push on formation AI, infected intelligence, new infected variants, infected lieutenants(Her Operators), Infected Leviathan (Late game super unit), Operator improvements, and the massive San Francisco North map expansion.

The goal over the next 60 days is to push every major gameplay system far beyond what existed ever before.

You can catch up on the latest CERC HQ below if you want to see the full breakdown for yourself:

The Next 60 Days

Over the next 30 to 60 days, the focus is pushing every major gameplay system forward beyond what existed before in the original build.

• Civilian Evacuation polish and bug fixing

• Formation AI improvements

• Infected intelligence improvements

• New infected variants

• Lieutenants and late-game infected progression

• Leviathan progression

• Operator improvements

• San Francisco North expansion work

• RTS control improvements

• Save/load and multiplayer stability improvements

Civilian Evacuation Progress

The evacuation system has reached a major gameplay milestone. Players can now complete the full civilian rescue loop from intake to evacuation, with supporting systems now coming online around it.

• Functional intake processing

• Evacuation buses

• Infection scanning upgrades

• Doctrine progression

• Direct civilian movement into evacuation zones

• Upgrades to streamline civilian processing

• Options to skip holding cells

• Improved evacuation efficiency as your operation grows

Infected Rework

The infected are also receiving a major pass as part of this phase of development. Infection spread has been rebalanced, infected structure construction is now visible before activation, and late-game pressure is being tuned to reduce the frustrating “whack-a-mole” feeling players were running into. Endless Horde Mode is also available as a custom option for players who want the infection to keep spreading forever.

What Comes Next

The next major push is about taking the systems now coming online and making them stronger, smarter, and more stable. Expect continued work on formation AI, infected behavior, new infected threats, Operator improvements, San Francisco North, evacuation polish, and the broader late-game progression loop. As always, Experimental builds may contain rough edges, bugs, and unfinished content. Player reports are extremely helpful as these systems continue moving toward the default branch.

🎙️ Next CERC HQ – Livestream Details

🕔 When: Weekly Saturdays – 7 PM EST (New Time!)

💬 What is CERC HQ:

Welcome to Cepheus Protocol HQ, your ultimate weekly briefing on all things Cepheus Protocol! Join the Halcyon Winds team as we explore the latest updates, reveal behind-the-scenes development stories, and answer community questions about the game. From exciting new features to design challenges, this is your all-access pass to the evolving world of Cepheus Protocol. Tune in every week and stay ahead of the outbreak!

• Co-op Progress

• Total Revamp based on Community Feedback

• Level Design Updates

📺 Where to Watch:

• YouTube Livestream

• Discord Server

• Steam Page

🎤 Don’t miss our Live Q&A! We’ll be answering questions from the community during the stream.

📺 Missed a Stream? No Worries!

• YouTube VOD Playlist

• Spotify Podcast Archive (VODs may take 24 hours to appear)

The virus is loose across the Bay Area. Flashpoints are erupting across the peninsula as entire districts fall into chaos and infected swarms push deeper into civilian zones.

CERC forces are already in the field.

Embedded military reporters and frontline operators are transmitting battlefield coverage directly from active operations. The images you are about to see were captured during recent combat deployments across the region.

These transmissions come directly from the front.

The battle for the Bay Area has begun.

2026.6.11.1 Change list:

• Reduced Bobbing on larger vehicles when they turn in place

• Discord/Youtube main menu graphics updated

• Improved Guard to make Units run when their targets get too far away

• Improved Right click Attack orders to function more reliably as users expect. Units will only move as close as they need to so they can attack X unit instead of always moving on top of them

• Added ability to upgrade from a Wall to any unlocked Tiers Double gate/Vehicle gate

• Speculative fix to resolve an instance where Mortar auto fire can outright stop acquiring targets

• Improved Mortar control and updated Visuals to reflect all selected Mortars instead of just the "primary" one in X selection

• Mortars that are selected and ordered to manually attack ground will all properly obey instead of just the first selected unit doing it.

• Added Zoom sub stepping as you get closer to units to "smooth" out camera movement

• Fixed DNA being blocked by Vehicles

• Updated all Translations based on some new warning states added

• Boosted acceptance radius for evac helicopter 'land at evac site' behavior (radius was small enough that it could get 'stuck' due to default acceptance radius being wider than 'landing check' radius)

• Speculative fixes for SaveGame crash when saving Client Groups in coop

• Fixed a Police Car asset that was improperly failing to flag when placed by World buildings that it had blocked their doors which would cause Civilian mobs to malfunction

• Further TI refinements to Navigation for trees

• Civilian Intake balance loading to split mobs 50-50% across all active intakes more reliability

• Set up wall builder to colorize fully-scaled wall segments while still in the 'placement' phase (they turn a light green when fully scaled now) so its easier to determine which walls can be later upgraded to Double Gates once fully built.

• Fixed another user reported bug where Rally Points were not properly being invalidated when you updated them for clients/host after you placed down the initial one.

• Fixed Simplify animation mob quality quality flagging the wrong setting as expensive

• Added Double gate preview visuals to walls

• Updated 'full wall size' highlighting for wall construction to only highlight when using the full-size mesh (not the 1/3 or 1/2 size meshes), so a single segment only turns green when at max size

• Boosted intake bus stuck check sensitivity

• Adjusted cornering stiffness of the Wheel BPs for CERC's treaded vehicles to help them handle turns at speed and better keep under "control" so they don't end up inside objects

• Fixed the MLRS Front bumper detection socket

• Fixed Ground Vehicles using 'StopOnOverlap' for a lot of move commands: helps significantly with them 'stopping short' of move target(s)

• Speculative fix for evac helicopters taking off while civilians were en route to it

• Fixed the Zone Management List misaligning once at least one Zone hits 100% infection level

• Radio Tower / Radio Relay/ Ammo Tent/ Medical Tent/ Evac Security Wing all have preview archs now before placement.

The Next 60 Days of Cepheus Protocol...

Civilian Evacuation is now playable from start to finish, and today’s update is focused on hotfixes, cleanup, and what comes next for the Rebuild.

If you missed yesterday’s post covering one of the biggest updates to ever touch the Cepheus Protocol Rebuild, you can read it here: CERC HQ EP 91 Summary:

The evacuation system just hit a major milestone. For the first time, players can now play through the entire civilian rescue loop from beginning to end. This includes fully functional intake processing, evacuation buses, infection scanning upgrades, doctrine progression, and direct civilian movement into evacuation zones.

New doctrine upgrades now let you streamline processing, skip holding cells, and massively improve evacuation efficiency as your operation grows.

The infected are also getting a major overhaul. Infection spread has been rebalanced, structure construction is now visible before activation, and the late game is being tuned to reduce the frustrating “whack-a-mole” pressure players were running into. Endless Horde Mode is now available as a custom option for players who want the infection to spread forever.

Vehicle pathfinding, helicopters, gates, airstrikes, radio systems, and multiplayer syncing all received major fixes this week. The team also reworked a large number of save/load issues, improved performance for large sessions, and added better RTS management tools for handling evacuation zones and civilian flow.

Next up is a full push on formation AI, infected intelligence, new infected variants, infected lieutenants(Her Operators), Infected Leviathan (Late game super unit), Operator improvements, and the massive San Francisco North map expansion.

The goal over the next 60 days is to push every major gameplay system far beyond what existed ever before.

You can catch up on the latest CERC HQ below if you want to see the full breakdown for yourself:

The Next 60 Days

Over the next 30 to 60 days, the focus is pushing every major gameplay system forward beyond what existed before in the original build.

• Civilian Evacuation polish and bug fixing

• Formation AI improvements

• Infected intelligence improvements

• New infected variants

• Lieutenants and late-game infected progression

• Leviathan progression

• Operator improvements

• San Francisco North expansion work

• RTS control improvements

• Save/load and multiplayer stability improvements

Civilian Evacuation Progress

The evacuation system has reached a major gameplay milestone. Players can now complete the full civilian rescue loop from intake to evacuation, with supporting systems now coming online around it.

• Functional intake processing

• Evacuation buses

• Infection scanning upgrades

• Doctrine progression

• Direct civilian movement into evacuation zones

• Upgrades to streamline civilian processing

• Options to skip holding cells

• Improved evacuation efficiency as your operation grows

Infected Rework

The infected are also receiving a major pass as part of this phase of development. Infection spread has been rebalanced, infected structure construction is now visible before activation, and late-game pressure is being tuned to reduce the frustrating “whack-a-mole” feeling players were running into. Endless Horde Mode is also available as a custom option for players who want the infection to keep spreading forever.

What Comes Next

The next major push is about taking the systems now coming online and making them stronger, smarter, and more stable. Expect continued work on formation AI, infected behavior, new infected threats, Operator improvements, San Francisco North, evacuation polish, and the broader late-game progression loop. As always, Experimental builds may contain rough edges, bugs, and unfinished content. Player reports are extremely helpful as these systems continue moving toward the default branch.

🎙️ Next CERC HQ – Livestream Details

🕔 When: Weekly Saturdays – 7 PM EST (New Time!)

💬 What is CERC HQ:

Welcome to Cepheus Protocol HQ, your ultimate weekly briefing on all things Cepheus Protocol! Join the Halcyon Winds team as we explore the latest updates, reveal behind-the-scenes development stories, and answer community questions about the game. From exciting new features to design challenges, this is your all-access pass to the evolving world of Cepheus Protocol. Tune in every week and stay ahead of the outbreak!

• Co-op Progress

• Total Revamp based on Community Feedback

• Level Design Updates

📺 Where to Watch:

• YouTube Livestream

• Discord Server

• Steam Page

🎤 Don’t miss our Live Q&A! We’ll be answering questions from the community during the stream.

📺 Missed a Stream? No Worries!

• YouTube VOD Playlist

• Spotify Podcast Archive (VODs may take 24 hours to appear)

Civilian Evacuation Is Now Live On Public

Civilian Evacuation has now moved from Experimental into the default Public install of Cepheus Protocol.

For the last few weeks, players have been able to test the system on Experimental while we continued working through the core loop, save/load behavior, multiplayer support, civilian flow control, intake behavior, and the wider session reliability issues that come with a system this large.

As of this update, Civilian Evacuation is now stable enough for normal Public branch play.

That does not mean the system is finished. It means the core loop is now far enough along that players can run a full session from beginning to end with the modern evacuation systems active by default. From here, our focus shifts into bug triage, flow cleanup, vehicle reliability, guard AI behavior, RTS quality of life, and the next major infected faction push.

Tutorial on Evac

What This Public Branch Merge Means

This update brings the current Civilian Evacuation pass into the default version of the game. Players no longer need to opt into Experimental to play the main evacuation loop.

• Civilian Evacuation is now part of the default install

• Full sessions can now be played from beginning to end with Civilian Evacuation active

• Save/load support is done

• Multiplayer support is done

• The newer civilian flow systems are now the main direction over the older legacy methods and are far superior and easier to work with

• Public branch feedback will now drive the next round of fixes and cleanup

Civilian Evacuation is not a side system. It touches the wider RTS loop, zone control, civilian movement, intake processing, vehicle usage, reputation consequences, infection pressure, and long term match pacing.

Civilian Evacuation Now Lets You Choke Off Chelsey

The newer evacuation system is built around stronger flow control than the legacy methods. Instead of forcing every civilian or group through a narrow set of older behaviors, the current system gives players more tools for controlling how civilians move, where they go, and how quickly they are processed.

Recent updates added support for civilian and no civilian modes for gates, evacuation waystations, improved intake behavior, and better routing so civilians and mobs can move toward controlled flow points instead of always pushing directly into intake or world buildings.

This gives the system a stronger foundation for larger matches. It lets players shape movement patterns, reduce congestion, and build cleaner evacuation pipelines instead of fighting the old flow logic every session.

Our current mission intent is to lock in the systems that are already present, stabilize the remaining edge cases, and then move forward into the next major line items.

Known Issues And Current Triage

• Bus AI improvements in terms of turning (We are actively looking into this right now)

• Loading old saves from before today may incur Population jumps as the global population of some zones were increased across all maps to account for the Biomass resource that infected need to build their armies now

If you run into evacuation issues, vehicle pathing problems, save/load problems, or multiplayer desync behavior, please report them with as much session context as possible. The more specific the report, the faster we can isolate whether it is routing, state persistence, multiplayer replication, vehicle turning, or flow control.

This Week’s Focus

This week is primarily about stabilization and targeted quality of life work before we shift harder into the infected faction pass.

• Vehicle turning reliability

• Vehicle pathfinding information cohesion

• Guard AI responsiveness

• Civilian Evacuation flow cleanup

• Some Network/Performance improvements

• Upgrading walls into double gates

• Quality Of Life Priorities section below

Vehicle turning is one of the biggest areas we are reviewing right now. Several edge cases have been identified where vehicles do not turn as reliably as they should under certain conditions. We already have multiple initiatives under assessment to improve that behavior and reduce cases where vehicles need player intervention to recover cleanly.

Guard AI is also getting attention. The goal is to make guarding behavior more responsive, more reliable, and faster to react when units or structures come under pressure.

Quality Of Life Priorities

Alongside the core bug fixing, we are also lining up several RTS quality of life improvements that should make normal play feel better across every session.

• RTS camera improvements with better responsiveness and control feel

• Server browser improvements with clearer custom game settings and map previews when highlighting servers

• Guard AI improvements focused on reliability, movement, and reaction speed

• Vehicle pathfinding improvements focused on consistency and clearer behavior in edge cases

• Double gate upgrades so existing walls can be upgraded into double gates more cleanly

Patch Notes Summary

• Attack Move, Guard and Patrol vastly improved

• Unit icons can be assigned to as Guard/Garrison points instead of relying on per pixel accuracy

• Operators can Manage Active Intakes/Zones from their F7 window now

• Civilian Mobs Dynamically merge at intake and when they enter structures to free up population to keep the flow efficient.

• Civilian Mobs now have a simplified/vs complex mode that allows individual animations for higher end machines.

• DNA hides in Cinematic Mode

• Mass Deletions/Landscape clears don't spam the log anymore and are grouped dynamically based on player and unit type

• Time Dilation is now logged (Slomo, Fast Forward resume etc)

• Various Infected Attacking improvements to their Combat AI

• All Evacuation assets are finalized and in including the new DNA research elements under logistics

• Civilian / Bus waypoint system is now in allowing you to force drop off points for mobs/busses in zones where you build them.

• No Gate/Mob mode for certain gates to restrict certain areas from movement

• Staff/Security Animations improved for Civilian Evac divisions.

• New Idles added to all classes/combat Animation's

• Lighting overhaul to the maps to bring them into alignment and better then legacy in terms of Night time lighting and ambiance use the new Light Render Distance to tune it based on what GPU you use.

• A revamped Clearing/Brush tool (Bulldozer) that allows you to switch between different modes for managing the map. You can also now "resize" the tool via holding Shift then scrolling your mouse wheel in/out.

• Landscaping Mode

• Condemn Building Mode

• Purge Building Mode

• Clear Building Order

• Cheat Modes added for Ammo

  • Normal

  • Unlimited

  • Bottomless

• Cheat Mode added for Resupply

  • Normal

  • Unlimited Supply

• Gas Cheat Mode

  • Normal

  • Unlimited Gas

• Endless Horde Mutator added

  • Allows you to disable all limits for Infected for using resources and allows them to "cheat" and build massive armies should you want a more "crazy" game.

• Multiplayer Colors added so users can choose a color before joining games now and their Operator flare also reflects it .

• Predictive Code added to better "guess" where an infantry/Vehicle is going to be in 1 second so gates open sooner to avoid "crashes"

• Repair time for all structures were adjusted to be a lot more reasonable across the board

• Build Visuals added to all Infected Meshes/ Build times increased for all Infected structure types

• Builder/Infection Manager nerfed to how often they can "expo" in the mid-late game to bring down the "whack a mole' nature of gameplay.

• Airstrikes work during Slomo/Tactical pause for targeting now

• Standalone version of Treasure Island

• Move orders from Minimap/Run orders

• Custom game options to rebalance Evac

• Added Look/Aim Mouse Sensitivity to Operators

• Added a toggle for users to opt out of World Camera shakes from Hero Weapons

• Color System added for last order by for coop

• Killing Infected structures now gives you positive reputation in the zone you killed them in

• Trees/Foliage now blend in out based on Operator/RTS

• Power states no longer clear the recruitment window and instead block the build button as this was confusing people.

• Various Save/Load issues with Mesh variants for Infected

• Emergency call in for Engineers after all units are killed + CERC structures

• DNA Collection Device added to scientist

• Civilian Militias that attack you when your reputation drops too low in a zone

• Full Martial Law and Partial

• Infected Drop DNA which can be used for the two new Intake upgrades(More are coming in June)

• Population Meters is online

• Gas Tower Infection Motes affect the Operator screen now

• QWERTY vs AZERTY mode added

• New Operator Weapons added

  • Primary Weapons

    • M416-A7

    • AK105

    • G36

    • MP5

    • RX12

    • AUG

    • XM45

    • UMP

    • AK-85

  • Secondary Weapons

    • DE50

    • USP

• New Operators visuals added

  • Winters

  • CBRN Guard

  • CERC Pilot

Moved the current Civilian Evacuation experience into the Public branch. Which includes these changes. These include gifs/videos and more in-depth breakdown of everything in this patch

The known issue list will keep changing as more reports come in. Our goal is to identify the highest impact issues first, especially anything that interrupts long sessions, multiplayer sessions, save/load continuity, or evacuation flow.

The Next 60 Days

The next 60 days are about getting the game fully back into its major intended loop, then pushing beyond what existed in Legacy.

The Rebuild is already past Legacy in several important areas, but there are still major line items that need to come back online, be refined, or be expanded. Players can also see the active priority order on the far right side of the main menu.

• Civilian Evacuation polish and bug fixing

• Formation AI and wider movement improvements

• Vehicle pathfinding and turning reliability

• Guard AI refinements

• RTS camera and control improvements

• Server browser improvements with custom settings and map previews

• Operator Polish Period

• San Francisco North expansion work

• Infected intelligence improvements

• New infected variants

• Lieutenants and late game infected progression

• Leviathan progression

The immediate goal is to stabilize the systems that are now live, then move into the next major gameplay push without leaving Civilian Evacuation half locked in. Once the current flow, vehicle, guard, and session stability work is in a stronger place, our attention shifts heavily into the infected faction.

June Is Infected Faction Month

June is focused heavily on Infected AI and the infected faction as a whole.

The goal is not just to add more infected bodies to the map. The goal is to make the faction smarter, more varied, more threatening, and more capable of creating pressure across the full match.

Over June, we are moving toward roughly half a dozen new infected types and major updates to existing infected behavior. This includes Lieutenants, the Chelsey side of the new AI work, Leviathan progression, new offshoot mutations, and larger infected threats built to change how players respond to the late game.

One of the new infected concepts under development is a heavy Behemoth style threat. The intent is a massive infected unit with a huge health pool, devastating melee impact, and slower movement that forces players to reposition, focus fire, and respect its presence when it enters the battlefield.

That infected pass is one of the most important upcoming milestones for the game. Civilian Evacuation gives the player a stronger strategic layer. The infected faction pass is what pushes harder against that layer and turns those systems into real pressure across the map.

San Francisco North And The Bay Area Map

San Francisco North remains a major part of the broader roadmap. It is the direction of the future Bay Area experience, and work will continue through June and July as we keep expanding, connecting, and stabilizing the larger map.

The focus for San Francisco North remains traversal, detail, pathfinding, performance, visual polish, and making sure the larger Bay Area map supports the core Pandemic experience correctly.

As the evacuation systems, infected faction, vehicle behavior, and AI systems stabilize, San Francisco North becomes more important because it gives those systems the scale they were built for.

Where We Are Now

Civilian Evacuation is now live on Public. It can be played in full sessions. It supports save/load. It supports multiplayer. It is not final, but it is now the default direction of the game.

The next step is not to tear the system apart again. The next step is to lock in what is already there, fix the highest impact issues, improve the flow, and then push into the next major priority set.

That means vehicle reliability, guard AI, RTS quality of life, server browser clarity, evacuation flow, save/load stability, multiplayer stability, and then the infected faction push through June.

Thanks to everyone who played the Experimental builds, reported issues, sent saves, joined multiplayer sessions, and helped us identify the edge cases that only show up after real players get their hands on the system. Public branch feedback is the next major step in getting this system fully hardened for the rest of the Rebuild.

The virus is loose across the Bay Area. Flashpoints are erupting across the peninsula as entire districts fall into chaos and infected swarms push deeper into civilian zones.

CERC forces are already in the field.

Embedded military reporters and frontline operators are transmitting battlefield coverage directly from active operations. The images you are about to see were captured during recent combat deployments across the region.

These transmissions come directly from the front.

The battle for the Bay Area has begun.

2026.6.2.1 Change list:

• Adjustments to the Zone Widget to try to fit all the info when top meter is near full of data (due to high power, infection level, and income from zone)

• DNA hides from Cinematic now

• Mass Unit Deletions and Mass tree removals don't spam the activity log anymore and are "Combined"

  • I.E Removed 4 Obstacles (Total Cost) instead of trying to list out every single item that was requested in that "removal" request

  • This applies also to Unit Deletions and will group them by type instead of printing each individual unit that was deleted to the activity log

• Fixed bug with Ammo less and bottomless magazine not working for one clipped based weapons like the MLRS. It also now auto fills the ammo of the MLRS when you cycle into a cheat mode

• Visibility fixes for garrisoned units (and mob meshes) on load when they were inside the Evac Cages

• Increased Special Infection spawn rates past day 0

• Counter Attacks by Infected are now a bit larger and scale better going into Day 4+ making them get stronger in mid-late game to better scale with player aggression

• Infected better understand how to counter Artilery spam

• Nerfed Evac Helicopter from Active to passive health regen

• Lowered health of Evac helicopter

• Added Support for Slomo, Pause, Fast Forward to Activity Log System

• Added a overhaul to how landscape actors work to account for a bug Atlas reported in coop relating to not being able to remove objects as a client sometimes

• Zone infection tick increased by 1.5 to account for biomass resource causing the Infected to "Stall out" if you heavily fight them and they cannot replace losses quick enough

• Fixed Operators not deleting their dead body when a client disconnects on the hub

• Fixed Garrisons not allowing pilots to re-enter even if space is otherwise not available

• MLRS + Cerberus not retaining their drivers on load sometimes

• Fixed Waystation beacon rendering black.

• Updated Infected 'Active Biomass' tracking to count '0 cost' non-structures as 1 biomass cost, so when CERC/Civilian units get converted, they count as 1 pop solving the issue where Infected pop could jump oddly from how we calculated CERC unit "cost"

• Iron wake received a car car placement polish pass

• Increased gas tower health

• Buffed jug attacks across the board

• increased car explosion damage to Cerberus

• Structures in Hologram state don't ignore damage anymore

• increased mortar explosion radius by 200uu + increased damage to Juggernaut

• Fixed Manual auto open door failing to respond in laggy conditions

• Boosted size of Activity Log Entries further, made them scale back down to initial size when viewed in Activity Log (so they fit)

• Applied a fix to Squad Mangers for the infected/Militia to Improve Attacking/Investigations

• Improved the Nav Collision of key objects in Half Moon Bay + Treasure Island that were trapping infected

• Added an outline to the Message Widgets (used for messages in the message queue at top left *other* than activity log entries)

• Speculative crash fix for

  https://discord.com/channels/469412014427602944/1510614857798651907/1510614857798651907

The Next 60 Days of Cepheus Protocol...

Civilian Evacuation is now playable from start to finish, and today’s update is focused on hotfixes, cleanup, and what comes next for the Rebuild.

If you missed yesterday’s post covering one of the biggest updates to ever touch the Cepheus Protocol Rebuild, you can read it here: CERC HQ EP 91 Summary:

The evacuation system just hit a major milestone. For the first time, players can now play through the entire civilian rescue loop from beginning to end. This includes fully functional intake processing, evacuation buses, infection scanning upgrades, doctrine progression, and direct civilian movement into evacuation zones.

New doctrine upgrades now let you streamline processing, skip holding cells, and massively improve evacuation efficiency as your operation grows.

The infected are also getting a major overhaul. Infection spread has been rebalanced, structure construction is now visible before activation, and the late game is being tuned to reduce the frustrating “whack-a-mole” pressure players were running into. Endless Horde Mode is now available as a custom option for players who want the infection to spread forever.

Vehicle pathfinding, helicopters, gates, airstrikes, radio systems, and multiplayer syncing all received major fixes this week. The team also reworked a large number of save/load issues, improved performance for large sessions, and added better RTS management tools for handling evacuation zones and civilian flow.

Next up is a full push on formation AI, infected intelligence, new infected variants, infected lieutenants(Her Operators), Infected Leviathan (Late game super unit), Operator improvements, and the massive San Francisco North map expansion.

The goal over the next 60 days is to push every major gameplay system far beyond what existed ever before.

You can catch up on the latest CERC HQ below if you want to see the full breakdown for yourself:

The Next 60 Days

Over the next 30 to 60 days, the focus is pushing every major gameplay system forward beyond what existed before in the original build.

• Civilian Evacuation polish and bug fixing

• Formation AI improvements

• Infected intelligence improvements

• New infected variants

• Lieutenants and late-game infected progression

• Leviathan progression

• Operator improvements

• San Francisco North expansion work

• RTS control improvements

• Save/load and multiplayer stability improvements

Civilian Evacuation Progress

The evacuation system has reached a major gameplay milestone. Players can now complete the full civilian rescue loop from intake to evacuation, with supporting systems now coming online around it.

• Functional intake processing

• Evacuation buses

• Infection scanning upgrades

• Doctrine progression

• Direct civilian movement into evacuation zones

• Upgrades to streamline civilian processing

• Options to skip holding cells

• Improved evacuation efficiency as your operation grows

Infected Rework

The infected are also receiving a major pass as part of this phase of development. Infection spread has been rebalanced, infected structure construction is now visible before activation, and late-game pressure is being tuned to reduce the frustrating “whack-a-mole” feeling players were running into. Endless Horde Mode is also available as a custom option for players who want the infection to keep spreading forever.

What Comes Next

The next major push is about taking the systems now coming online and making them stronger, smarter, and more stable. Expect continued work on formation AI, infected behavior, new infected threats, Operator improvements, San Francisco North, evacuation polish, and the broader late-game progression loop. As always, Experimental builds may contain rough edges, bugs, and unfinished content. Player reports are extremely helpful as these systems continue moving toward the default branch.

🎙️ Next CERC HQ – Livestream Details

🕔 When: Weekly Saturdays – 7 PM EST (New Time!)

💬 What is CERC HQ:

Welcome to Cepheus Protocol HQ, your ultimate weekly briefing on all things Cepheus Protocol! Join the Halcyon Winds team as we explore the latest updates, reveal behind-the-scenes development stories, and answer community questions about the game. From exciting new features to design challenges, this is your all-access pass to the evolving world of Cepheus Protocol. Tune in every week and stay ahead of the outbreak!

• Co-op Progress

• Total Revamp based on Community Feedback

• Level Design Updates

📺 Where to Watch:

• YouTube Livestream

• Discord Server

• Steam Page

🎤 Don’t miss our Live Q&A! We’ll be answering questions from the community during the stream.

📺 Missed a Stream? No Worries!

• YouTube VOD Playlist

• Spotify Podcast Archive (VODs may take 24 hours to appear)

The virus is loose across the Bay Area. Flashpoints are erupting across the peninsula as entire districts fall into chaos and infected swarms push deeper into civilian zones.

CERC forces are already in the field.

Embedded military reporters and frontline operators are transmitting battlefield coverage directly from active operations. The images you are about to see were captured during recent combat deployments across the region.

These transmissions come directly from the front.

The battle for the Bay Area has begun.

2026.5.30.6.2 Hotfix Change list:

• Fixed Infection Count going negative during live gameplay

• Fixed a Save/Load issue where Infected Count could reset to 0

• Improved Infection counter to count active and inactive infection including Chelsey into the base count.

The last major update

The Next 60 Days of Cepheus Protocol...

Civilian Evacuation is now playable from start to finish, and today’s update is focused on hotfixes, cleanup, and what comes next for the Rebuild.

If you missed yesterday’s post covering one of the biggest updates to ever touch the Cepheus Protocol Rebuild, you can read it here: CERC HQ EP 91 Summary:

The evacuation system just hit a major milestone. For the first time, players can now play through the entire civilian rescue loop from beginning to end. This includes fully functional intake processing, evacuation buses, infection scanning upgrades, doctrine progression, and direct civilian movement into evacuation zones.

New doctrine upgrades now let you streamline processing, skip holding cells, and massively improve evacuation efficiency as your operation grows.

The infected are also getting a major overhaul. Infection spread has been rebalanced, structure construction is now visible before activation, and the late game is being tuned to reduce the frustrating “whack-a-mole” pressure players were running into. Endless Horde Mode is now available as a custom option for players who want the infection to spread forever.

Vehicle pathfinding, helicopters, gates, airstrikes, radio systems, and multiplayer syncing all received major fixes this week. The team also reworked a large number of save/load issues, improved performance for large sessions, and added better RTS management tools for handling evacuation zones and civilian flow.

Next up is a full push on formation AI, infected intelligence, new infected variants, infected lieutenants(Her Operators), Infected Leviathan (Late game super unit), Operator improvements, and the massive San Francisco North map expansion.

The goal over the next 60 days is to push every major gameplay system far beyond what existed ever before.

You can catch up on the latest CERC HQ below if you want to see the full breakdown for yourself:

The Next 60 Days

Over the next 30 to 60 days, the focus is pushing every major gameplay system forward beyond what existed before in the original build.

• Civilian Evacuation polish and bug fixing

• Formation AI improvements

• Infected intelligence improvements

• New infected variants

• Lieutenants and late-game infected progression

• Leviathan progression

• Operator improvements

• San Francisco North expansion work

• RTS control improvements

• Save/load and multiplayer stability improvements

Civilian Evacuation Progress

The evacuation system has reached a major gameplay milestone. Players can now complete the full civilian rescue loop from intake to evacuation, with supporting systems now coming online around it.

• Functional intake processing

• Evacuation buses

• Infection scanning upgrades

• Doctrine progression

• Direct civilian movement into evacuation zones

• Upgrades to streamline civilian processing

• Options to skip holding cells

• Improved evacuation efficiency as your operation grows

Infected Rework

The infected are also receiving a major pass as part of this phase of development. Infection spread has been rebalanced, infected structure construction is now visible before activation, and late-game pressure is being tuned to reduce the frustrating “whack-a-mole” feeling players were running into. Endless Horde Mode is also available as a custom option for players who want the infection to keep spreading forever.

What Comes Next

The next major push is about taking the systems now coming online and making them stronger, smarter, and more stable. Expect continued work on formation AI, infected behavior, new infected threats, Operator improvements, San Francisco North, evacuation polish, and the broader late-game progression loop. As always, Experimental builds may contain rough edges, bugs, and unfinished content. Player reports are extremely helpful as these systems continue moving toward the default branch.

🎙️ Next CERC HQ – Livestream Details

🕔 When: Weekly Saturdays – 7 PM EST (New Time!)

💬 What is CERC HQ:

Welcome to Cepheus Protocol HQ, your ultimate weekly briefing on all things Cepheus Protocol! Join the Halcyon Winds team as we explore the latest updates, reveal behind-the-scenes development stories, and answer community questions about the game. From exciting new features to design challenges, this is your all-access pass to the evolving world of Cepheus Protocol. Tune in every week and stay ahead of the outbreak!

• Co-op Progress

• Total Revamp based on Community Feedback

• Level Design Updates

📺 Where to Watch:

• YouTube Livestream

• Discord Server

• Steam Page

🎤 Don’t miss our Live Q&A! We’ll be answering questions from the community during the stream.

📺 Missed a Stream? No Worries!

• YouTube VOD Playlist

• Spotify Podcast Archive (VODs may take 24 hours to appear)

The virus is loose across the Bay Area. Flashpoints are erupting across the peninsula as entire districts fall into chaos and infected swarms push deeper into civilian zones.

CERC forces are already in the field.

Embedded military reporters and frontline operators are transmitting battlefield coverage directly from active operations. The images you are about to see were captured during recent combat deployments across the region.

These transmissions come directly from the front.

The battle for the Bay Area has begun.

2026.5.30.6 Change list:

Major Gameplay Updates

Civilian Intake, Migration, and Bus Behavior

The virus is loose across the Bay Area. Flashpoints are erupting across the peninsula as entire districts fall into chaos and infected swarms push deeper into civilian zones.

CERC forces are already in the field.

Embedded military reporters and frontline operators are transmitting battlefield coverage directly from active operations. The images you are about to see were captured during recent combat deployments across the region.

These transmissions come directly from the front.

The battle for the Bay Area has begun.

2026.5.24.1 Change list:

• Fixed Dead Air SOC's having a weird offset in certain areas of the map

• Fixed a fog of war issue on Dead Air on init

• Improved the Helicopter nav on Dead Air

• Fixed a Chelsey duplication glitch that occurred when loading a save

🎧 The Next 60 Days of Cepheus Protocol...

Civilian Evacuation is now playable from start to finish, and today’s update is focused on hotfixes, cleanup, and what comes next for the Rebuild.

If you missed yesterday’s post covering one of the biggest updates to ever touch the Cepheus Protocol Rebuild, you can read it here: CERC HQ EP 91 Summary:

The evacuation system just hit a major milestone. For the first time, players can now play through the entire civilian rescue loop from beginning to end. This includes fully functional intake processing, evacuation buses, infection scanning upgrades, doctrine progression, and direct civilian movement into evacuation zones.

New doctrine upgrades now let you streamline processing, skip holding cells, and massively improve evacuation efficiency as your operation grows.

The infected are also getting a major overhaul. Infection spread has been rebalanced, structure construction is now visible before activation, and the late game is being tuned to reduce the frustrating “whack-a-mole” pressure players were running into. Endless Horde Mode is now available as a custom option for players who want the infection to spread forever.

Vehicle pathfinding, helicopters, gates, airstrikes, radio systems, and multiplayer syncing all received major fixes this week. The team also reworked a large number of save/load issues, improved performance for large sessions, and added better RTS management tools for handling evacuation zones and civilian flow.

Next up is a full push on formation AI, infected intelligence, new infected variants, infected lieutenants(Her Operators), Infected Leviathan (Late game super unit), Operator improvements, and the massive San Francisco North map expansion.

The goal over the next 60 days is to push every major gameplay system far beyond what existed ever before.

You can catch up on the latest CERC HQ below if you want to see the full breakdown for yourself:

The Next 60 Days

Over the next 30 to 60 days, the focus is pushing every major gameplay system forward beyond what existed before in the original build.

• Civilian Evacuation polish and bug fixing

• Formation AI improvements

• Infected intelligence improvements

• New infected variants

• Lieutenants and late-game infected progression

• Leviathan progression

• Operator improvements

• San Francisco North expansion work

• RTS control improvements

• Save/load and multiplayer stability improvements

Civilian Evacuation Progress

The evacuation system has reached a major gameplay milestone. Players can now complete the full civilian rescue loop from intake to evacuation, with supporting systems now coming online around it.

• Functional intake processing

• Evacuation buses

• Infection scanning upgrades

• Doctrine progression

• Direct civilian movement into evacuation zones

• Upgrades to streamline civilian processing

• Options to skip holding cells

• Improved evacuation efficiency as your operation grows

Infected Rework

The infected are also receiving a major pass as part of this phase of development. Infection spread has been rebalanced, infected structure construction is now visible before activation, and late-game pressure is being tuned to reduce the frustrating “whack-a-mole” feeling players were running into. Endless Horde Mode is also available as a custom option for players who want the infection to keep spreading forever.

What Comes Next

The next major push is about taking the systems now coming online and making them stronger, smarter, and more stable. Expect continued work on formation AI, infected behavior, new infected threats, Operator improvements, San Francisco North, evacuation polish, and the broader late-game progression loop. As always, Experimental builds may contain rough edges, bugs, and unfinished content. Player reports are extremely helpful as these systems continue moving toward the default branch.

🎙️ Next CERC HQ – Livestream Details

🕔 When: Weekly Saturdays – 7 PM EST (New Time!)

💬 What is CERC HQ:

Welcome to Cepheus Protocol HQ, your ultimate weekly briefing on all things Cepheus Protocol! Join the Halcyon Winds team as we explore the latest updates, reveal behind-the-scenes development stories, and answer community questions about the game. From exciting new features to design challenges, this is your all-access pass to the evolving world of Cepheus Protocol. Tune in every week and stay ahead of the outbreak!

• Co-op Progress

• Total Revamp based on Community Feedback

• Level Design Updates

📺 Where to Watch:

• YouTube Livestream

• Discord Server

• Steam Page

🎤 Don’t miss our Live Q&A! We’ll be answering questions from the community during the stream.

📺 Missed a Stream? No Worries!

• YouTube VOD Playlist

• Spotify Podcast Archive (VODs may take 24 hours to appear)

Update On Progress… Live on Experimental

Civilian Evacuation Mechanics Progress Update

This month’s update is focused on two major pieces of the rebuild: Civilian Evacuation and San Francisco North. Civilian Evacuation is entering Experimental as an early preview, and San Francisco North is being included as an early incubator look at the future Bay Area map. Both are playable early because they are now far enough along to communicate the direction of the rebuild, even though both still have work ahead of them.

Construct an Intake euthanization facility to dispose of infected and uninfected civilians as you see fit. But every atrocity has consequences. Kill enough civilians, and the survivors will hear of your crimes, form militias, and come for revenge.

For the full original overview of the Civilian Evacuation Mechanics check out this article

Civilian Evacuation

Civilian Evacuation is one of the largest gameplay systems being added to Cepheus Protocol. The goal is to make civilians part of the strategy instead of background population. Players will be moving civilians out of danger, routing them through evacuation systems, processing them through intake, and eventually tying those decisions into income, infection control, reputation, and long-term zone stability.

Active Intake is limited to two facilities at a time for now. As testing expands, this limit may increase while we continue balancing loading, staffing, and facility throughput. To run Intake efficiently, you will need to hire personnel and maintain a steady flow through the system.

Gilbroz Gaming recently actually did a highlight of the new systems check it out!

• You can view the below Live Stream to see the current overview of the systems in place and experience a deep dive!

Hire security teams to passively defend structures within their area of influence. They help protect your evacuation infrastructure, allowing you to commit your population fully to the war effort. They dynamically patrol your base within that area of influence responding to threats as they arrive.

Why This Preview Matters

Civilian Evacuation adds a new strategic layer to Cepheus Protocol. You are not just clearing infected and holding territory anymore. You are also managing the people trapped inside the outbreak. You can just kill them all too..

Civilian Evac adds a new strategic layer to the game, where every decision can determine the fate of the civilians. By evacuating survivors, you cut off the infected from a vital biomass source, slowing their growth and starving them of the resources they need to spread and build armies

This preview shows the first visible version of that loop. Civilians can now move through active intake zones based on the policies you set for each zone. Depending on how you configure them, civilians can move by bus, on foot, or through both methods at the same time.

After Day 4, infected birds will begin entering the battlefield in large swarms. These packs can quickly overwhelm helicopters and infantry, forcing players to adapt their defenses.

That means buses are no longer the only path into evacuation. They are one part of a larger intake system where each zone can control how civilians are allowed to move, how they are processed, and how quickly they can be pushed through the evacuation pipeline.

For this preview, players will be able to see civilian movement, bus supported transport, ground based evacuation, intake flow, and the first pass of how these systems connect into the larger strategic map.

Some Dev ran playtests

What Is Not Fully In Yet

• Intake Structure Research items (Research integration)

  • Hand Scanners - are the first tier of upgrades bought via DNA/Cash from the Doctrines tree. It allows you to detect infection at the intake structure and immediately be able to decide if you want to euthanize or cage for DNA. Caging for DNA allows you to passively farm DNA for 2-3 rotations till the Infected succumbs and dies.

  • Scanning machines - replaces the hand scanners and integrates a MRI inspired device that scans for Infection as mobs enter the intake area allowing you to speed up the flow by 50% and mirrors the process you can do above.

• Save/Load there are still some issues we are tracking but its 90% there. if you encounter any save/load issues contact us on Discord with the save file details!

• Bus AI- we are tracking some issues with Busses arriving at a location and doing donuts. If this occurs click the said bus and hit pause/resume and that will fix it. We are looking into this as we speak.

• Some UI elements are still W.I.P and are mockups they are being worked on by our artists atm

Other Cool stuff added!

• QWERTY vs azerty keyboard modes

• Treasure Island as a standalone map

• F1 Player list now respects colors

• New No build areas added to new Evac Assets + Legacy structures

• More enemy types now supported in the presets system

• Tons of new Custom Options,

  • Infinite Ammo Mode

  • No Gas Mode

  • No Supply System Mode

  • Endless Horde Mode

  • Disabling Militia attacks or making them be able to attack you more often

  • Allows you make Evac harder or easier via custom tuning like Infected/Noninfected Reward Money

  • Increase the Evac Capacity of the Merlin

• Added the ability to choose a custom color, you can save a "swab" so you can cycle between colors for different groups you play with. Even allows you to type in RGB/CMKY and sample colors from windows!

• Radio Operators call in now work during Slomo/Tactical Pause!

• Operators now have a Look/Aim sensitivity settings!

• World Camera shakes that emit from explosions and "hero" unit weapons. Can be disabled in gameplay options!

• Single click Minimap to walk/ double click to issue a run order from the minimap now + a new move preview system(Still in testing)

• Resizable Landscape removal tool just scroll your mouse wheel after you open it!

• Move Prediction for Infantry and Vehicles gate tweaked to open earlier and faster for units leaving/exiting.

• Infected Structures now have a more obvious build time and will be effectively helpless during their construction stages now

• When a zone is out of power unit recruitment buttons no longer disappear which was confusing people instead we do this now

• Purge world buildings to kill all people inside a building but doing so will effect your reputation in that zone and nearby zones over time. Condemn to tell people to "clear" a structure over time and permanently mark it as off limits to safeguard your bases from Militia attacks should you commit war crimes.

• AI now support "Guard" mode which will defend units when they are hurt and will auto follow them around the map.

Improved Operator visuals and separated them further from RTS. Take a look!

Iron sighting when playing as the Operator now dynamically shifts their FOV so its a bit more immersive

Coming Next Week

Next week is about finishing the remaining Civilian Evacuation pieces listed above and getting the system ready for wider access. I.E leaving experimental and entering the public branch

Civilian Evacuation

• Finish the remaining intake research integration

• Bring Hand Scanners and Scanning Machines fully online

• Continue save/load refinement for evacuation related systems

• Improve bus reliability

• Polish civilian movement through active intake zones

• Refine how zone policies control buses, ground movement, or both

• Adjust anything major that comes up from community feedback

At that point, the default branch will receive a major update that includes all of these changes. We are currently aiming for that to happen roughly within the next week.

Rounding Out The Month

After that, the rest of the month will focus on AI formations and pathfinding.

The goal is to make larger groups move more consistently, reduce remaining movement edge cases, and improve how units behave across the map.

Starting In June

The first part of June will shift toward improving the Infection faction as a whole.

Civilian Evacuation is the current focus, but once this round of work is in a stronger place, the Infection faction is next in line for a larger refinement push.`

San Francisco North

San Francisco North is now available as an early unstable version of the larger Bay Area map.

You can jump in and play around with it, but it is not meant to replace the current stable map yet. Some features are not fully connected, some mechanics are still being integrated, and parts of the map are still rough. The goal right now is to let players see the scale, layout, direction, and progress as the map continues to come together.

Expect unfinished areas, missing detail, pathfinding issues, performance rough spots, and sections that may change as we keep building it out.

Over the next 30 days or so, our goal is to keep pushing San Francisco North toward becoming the main stable Bay Area experience. Going into June and July, we will be focusing on traversal, exterior detail, pathfinding, performance, visual polish, and making sure the larger map supports the core Pandemic experience properly.

San Francisco North is playable in its current state, but it should be treated as an early look at where the main map is heading rather than the finished version.

What Comes After This Pass

Civilian Evacuation is the current focus, but once this pass is in a stronger place, our attention will shift into the next set of major refinements.

AI Formations And Pathfinding

The next major focus will be AI formations and pathfinding.

This means improving how larger groups move across the map, how units stay organized during movement, and how they handle longer routes, tighter spaces, and larger fights.

Infected AI And The Infected Faction

After that, we will be putting more attention into Infected AI and the Infected faction as a whole.

The goal is to keep improving how the infected behave, pressure the player, interact with the map, and scale as the match progresses.

Wider Game Refinement

Alongside that work, we will continue improving the systems players interact with every session.

That includes vehicle pathfinding, helicopter behavior, performance, map flow, unit movement, general tuning, and refinements across existing systems.

Operator Polish

Operator polish is also a major part of what comes next.

Operators are meant to feel like a real part of the war effort, not a separate layer sitting beside the RTS side of the game. We will be spending more time improving how Operators move, control, fight, build, use vehicles, use turrets, recruit squads, command their own forces, and connect into the larger RTS systems.

The goal is to make Operators useful across the early game, mid game, and late game. For example, Operators should be able to push into the world, establish forward outposts, build up local forces, and create openings that RTS players/or themselves can take control of later.

We will also continue finalizing the Operator UI with the same level of attention we have been applying to the RTS side over the last few months.

San Francisco North

San Francisco North will continue moving forward during this same stretch.

It is available now as an early unstable version of the larger Bay Area map. Players can jump in and try it, but not every feature or mechanic is fully connected yet.

Going into June and July, we will keep pushing San Francisco North toward becoming the main stable Bay Area experience.

After That

Once these pieces are in a stronger place, we will continue moving through the rest of the roadmap already posted on the Steam forums.

Stable Branch And Experimental Branch

If you want the most stable experience, stay on the main branch.

If you want to see where the rebuild is heading, the Experimental branch will have the Civilian Evacuation preview and the early San Francisco North version available.

🎙️ Next CERC HQ – Livestream Details

🕔 When: Weekly Saturdays – 7 PM EST (New Time!)

💬 What is CERC HQ:

Welcome to Cepheus Protocol HQ, your ultimate weekly briefing on all things Cepheus Protocol! Join the Halcyon Winds team as we explore the latest updates, reveal behind-the-scenes development stories, and answer community questions about the game. From exciting new features to design challenges, this is your all-access pass to the evolving world of Cepheus Protocol. Tune in every week and stay ahead of the outbreak!

• Co-op Progress

• Total Revamp based on Community Feedback

• Level Design Updates

📺 Where to Watch:

• YouTube Livestream

• Discord Server

• Steam Page

🎤 Don’t miss our Live Q&A! We’ll be answering questions from the community during the stream.

📺 Missed a Stream? No Worries!

• YouTube VOD Playlist

• Spotify Podcast Archive (VODs may take 24 hours to appear)

The virus is loose across the Bay Area. Flashpoints are erupting across the peninsula as entire districts fall into chaos and infected swarms push deeper into civilian zones.

CERC forces are already in the field.

Embedded military reporters and frontline operators are transmitting battlefield coverage directly from active operations. The images you are about to see were captured during recent combat deployments across the region.

These transmissions come directly from the front.

The battle for the Bay Area has begun.

🎧 Update On Progress…

Civilian Evacuation Mechanics Progress Update

For the full original overview of the Civilian Evacuation Mechanics check out this articleOver the last four weeks, we’ve made major progress on the Civilian Evacuation Mechanics. These updates represent a shift from early implementation into full system integration, touching population control, logistics, AI behavior, and overall match pacing.

Below is a summary of the last four weeks of development while we work to iron out the new main mechanics of Civilian Evac.

Also consider opting into "Legacy" and try the older version of Cepheus the rebuilt was based on to get some insight on what er are aiming to do differently this time around

Week One | CERC HQ | #83

A major new gameplay system is currently in development, focused on changing how players handle the outbreak over time.

Calypso is nearing readiness after a public playtest exposed pathfinding and gameplay issues. The map itself is largely complete, with dense terrain, cities, and chokepoints designed to support base building and flanking strategies. Current work is focused on resolving those issues before pushing the map to experimental.

Legacy locations are also being reworked into standalone scenarios. Iron Wake is being adapted into a pandemic style map with carrier based deployment and inland progression. Additional island maps are being planned to support shorter session formats while larger regions continue development.

Combat pacing is being adjusted based on feedback. Early waves are being tuned to ramp more gradually, with fewer special infected. Balance changes to juggernauts, weapon damage, and anti air systems are in progress, alongside fixes for issues like bird targeting and rally point bugs.

At the same time, early work has begun on a civilian evacuation system. The current focus is on building out screening checkpoints, isolation zones, evacuation areas, and euthanization options, along with staff management. Infection detection is intentionally limited early on, with research planned to unlock better tools. Logistics systems like buses and helicopters are being explored for moving civilians between zones.

Next steps are focused on continuing evacuation system development, expanding research mechanics, and preparing for infection spread across multiple locations.

Week Two| CERC HQ | #84

Civilian evacuation development is expanding into a broader population control system that is still actively being built and refined.

Work is underway on zone to zone population management, allowing players to move, contain, or eliminate civilians depending on strategy. Building level mechanics like purge and condemn are being developed to tie directly into reputation and long term stability.

DNA gameplay is also being reworked. Current work includes implementing drops, collectors, and faster gathering, with scientists playing a larger role. This system is intended to support future progression tied to infection control.

Map updates are continuing, with a refreshed island and another standalone map in development. Weapons are being expanded, and ongoing balance work is targeting vehicles and time to kill.

Several issues are still in progress, including infected bird behavior, inconsistent AI, and bugs in DNA collection. Upcoming work is focused on buses, evacuation intake systems, and overall polish as the feature moves closer to a testable state.

Week Three | CERC HQ | #85

Development is now focused on scaling the evacuation system into a larger gameplay layer, with multiple systems being implemented and iterated on simultaneously.

Current work includes evacuation intake, zone routing, and automated transport. Systems like buses and depots are being built out to support large scale population movement, with an emphasis on managing flow, capacity, and safety.

Maps are continuing to be updated and rebuilt to better support navigation and combat flow, aligning environments with the needs of these new systems.

Additional mechanics are in development, including DNA collectors, martial law controls, and a reputation system. Work is underway to support dynamic militia formation as a response to player actions, though this is still being implemented and tested.

Because many of these systems are recent additions, there are active issues with population transfer logic and pathfinding. These are currently being addressed through ongoing iteration.

Next steps include completing evacuation flow, expanding militia behavior, and preparing for early testing on a larger scale city map.

Week Four | CERC HQ | #86

Work continues on expanding and stabilizing evacuation systems as they move closer to broader testing.

Current development includes transport buses, overpopulation mechanics, and early versions of autonomous security teams that can be equipped and assigned. Managing population flow between zones is becoming a core focus, with failure cases like overcrowding and instability being actively tested.

Militia behavior is also being developed further, with escalation tied to reputation and civilian losses. These systems are still being tuned and expanded.

Additional work includes map updates, pathfinding improvements, early co op support for evacuation systems, and broader balance passes across combat and AI.

There are still known issues, particularly with buses, pathfinding, and UI behavior, which are being actively worked on.

Next steps are focused on completing evacuation systems, refining AI and balance, and preparing the first wider playable build.

Week Five | CERC HQ | #87

Tonight : TBD

Current Status

Where Things Stand

The immediate goal is to get the first experimental build out within the next week or two. There is still a lot in motion, and key parts of the evacuation system are still being built and layered together before the full experience is playable from start to finish.

How Development Is Being Handled

Right now, most of the work is happening in isolated chunks.

Individual systems are being built and tested independently, then integrated as they come online. At this stage, the focus is not just adding features, but getting everything to function together as a complete gameplay loop.

What We Are Solving

The current focus is on finishing and stabilizing the remaining core pieces:

• Intake, evacuation flow, and euthanization so the full population loop works end to end

• Bus system issues including AI behavior, pathfinding, and collision

• Zone to zone transfers to ensure population movement is reliable under load

• Final integration of evacuation systems with already implemented supporting systems

• Recent bugs and edge cases reported over the last week during testing

Most supporting systems and top level civilian mechanics are already in or close to being finalized. The remaining work is focused on getting these last pieces working together cleanly so the system can run from start to finish without breaking.

What Comes Next

The priority is getting a complete start to finish loop that is stable enough to play without breaking.

Once that is in place, the next step is pushing the build into experimental so players can begin stress testing it in real gameplay conditions.

Community Playtesting

Once the system is baked in, the plan is to move into rapid public playtesting with the community, running sessions daily or every couple of days to quickly iron out issues and refine the design.

If you want to be part of that process, consider joining the Discord. These playtests will come online quickly as the system becomes playable, and it will be the best place to get involved early.

🎙️ Next CERC HQ – Livestream Details

🕔 When: Weekly Saturdays – 7 PM EST (New Time!)

💬 What is CERC HQ:

Welcome to Cepheus Protocol HQ, your ultimate weekly briefing on all things Cepheus Protocol! Join the Halcyon Winds team as we explore the latest updates, reveal behind-the-scenes development stories, and answer community questions about the game. From exciting new features to design challenges, this is your all-access pass to the evolving world of Cepheus Protocol. Tune in every week and stay ahead of the outbreak!

• Co-op Progress

• Total Revamp based on Community Feedback

• Level Design Updates

📺 Where to Watch:

• YouTube Livestream

• Discord Server

• Steam Page

🎤 Don’t miss our Live Q&A! We’ll be answering questions from the community during the stream.

📺 Missed a Stream? No Worries!

• YouTube VOD Playlist

• Spotify Podcast Archive (VODs may take 24 hours to appear)

🎧 Last Time on CERC HQ…

Cepheus Protocol | CERC HQ | #84

Civilian evacuation is finally coming together, and it’s reshaping how every system in the game connects.

Phase three kicks off with a full evacuation framework. You can now purge or relocate entire buildings, shift populations between zones, and manage reputation based on your decisions. A new civilian hold system tracks infected, dead, and evacuated counts in real time, while evacuation orders and zone flow create a dynamic map-wide population movement.

DNA systems are getting a major upgrade. Enemies now drop DNA, scientists can collect it, and a new DNA collector passively generates resources based on infection levels. This ties directly into upcoming research systems, letting you invest in detection tools, upgrades, and long-term progression.

There’s also a wave of improvements across the board. New weapons are being added, vehicles and time-to-kill are rebalanced, and infected AI like birds are being tuned for better behavior and performance. Some bugs are still being worked through, including pathfinding quirks and visual issues with DNA collection.

Next up is finishing the evacuation loop with buses, intake systems, and full civilian processing. After that, focus shifts to operator polish, smarter infected AI, and expanding into larger maps with more complex scenarios.

Developer Update This Week

Phase 3 is already in motion. We are several weeks into implementation, and the next major push is Civilian Evacuation. We are aiming for an experimental patch in the next week or two, and when it lands, we are going to need strong testing and actionable feedback.

NOTE:

Non Infected Civilian Meshes are in + Operator Weapon drop is coming soon!

2 New maps are live for testing on Experimental. Angel Island will be joining the roster as a standalone map in the next 1-2 weeks before we resume work on San Francisco North.

Operation Iron Wake & Operation Stray Ember

The virus is loose across the Bay Area. Flashpoints are erupting across the peninsula as entire districts fall into chaos and infected swarms push deeper into civilian zones.

CERC forces are already in the field.

Embedded military reporters and frontline operators are transmitting battlefield coverage directly from active operations. The images you are about to see were captured during recent combat deployments across the region.

These transmissions come directly from the front.

The battle for the Bay Area has begun.

Civilian Evacuation, Zone Reputation, and DNA Research

Civilian Evacuation is one of the biggest new ways to engage with the game. It is not just another side system. It is a new gameplay lane that changes how you make money, how you move people, how you secure territory, and how your decisions reshape the map over time.

What Civilian Evacuation Adds

• Civilian Evacuation creates a new way to play the game by turning population control into a real strategic layer. Taking away the Biomass resource from Infected

• You will be able to generate income through evacuation.

• Martial law can be declared in any zone to slow infection but doing so will piss off civilians depending on the level you employ ruining your reputation in that zone.

• You will be able to move populations between zones through buses and normal movement.

• You will be able to route civilians into intake centers and process them based on the rules you set. That means deciding who gets evacuated, who gets screened further, and who gets shot.

• The goal is to add replay value and give players another way to approach the war beyond direct combat. It creates more room for logistics, more room for decision making, and more ways to trade safety, efficiency, and profit against each other.

• Players can run camps together or alone its up to them in Coop or SP sessions

How Intake and Screening Work

The intake side of the system is built around letting you control what happens to civilian populations once they are brought in. Depending on your rules and screening process, civilians can be:

• Evacuated

• Caged for DNA

• Caged for containment (Isolation till confirmation)

• Euthanized

This gives the player a lot more control over how strict or how ruthless they want their response to be. It also means interactions with the civilian systems are no longer passive. It becomes something you actively shape through policy, logistics, and security.

Transit, Buses, and Zone Waypoints

• A major part of this update is the ability to move civilian populations from zone to zone in a more structured way.

• The bus system is being added so civilians can be transported across the map and brought into admin intake centers.

• At the same time, a new structure is being added that lets you choose a waypoint inside a zone. That matters because civilians will not always need to go straight to a building or straight to the admin center. Instead, they can be routed to a controlled entry point inside the zone first, which gives you a stronger way to establish security, stage movement, and control how populations enter an area.

Zone Reputation

Zone reputation is the pressure system tied to how you treat civilians.

• It is directly affected by atrocities and evacuation.

• If you keep killing civilians in any form, your reputation in that zone drops and affects other nearby zones.

• If you successfully evacuate people, your reputation rises. The system is intentionally simple in its base form, because the goal right now is to get it in, see how it feels, and then tune it from there.

• The consequence for low reputation is civilian retaliation. If your reputation continues to collapse, civilian militia groups can begin launching raids against your outposts and bases. The worse your reputation gets, the larger those groups can become, and the more often they can appear. That means brutality is no longer just a throwaway action. It can create an escalating security problem that pushes back against the player.

DNA Research

DNA research ties directly back into Civilian Evacuation and the wider combat loop.

• On the civilian side, it improves the efficiency of evacuation and intake systems.

• On the combat side, it improves the reliability and resilience of some of your units.

• Shrewder Rounds will be readded plus Chelsey's Cocoon state so she will be unkillable till you get this upgrade through learning the Pangu virus.

• This is part of the broader push to make DNA matter more as a real gameplay system instead of a background mechanic.

• We will be going into this in more detail over the next one to two weeks as the base intake systems come online.

Why This Matters

Civilian Evacuation is not a side feature. It changes the core gameplay loop. Matches are no longer just about holding ground and killing infected. They are also about screening civilians, moving them, containing infection risk, securing evacuation routes, and managing the consequences of your decisions.

Experimental Testing

We are aiming for an experimental patch in the next week or two. When it lands, we need as many players as possible to stress test the new gameplay loop and give us actionable feedback. That feedback will directly shape how fast we can stabilize this system and push it further.

Current Order Of Operations

Right now, the immediate implementation focus is:

• Reputation penalties that can trigger civilian militia raids on your bases

• The bus system for moving civilians from zone to zone

• New waypoint structures that let you control where civilians enter a zone

• Admin intake flow for processing civilian populations

That is the current foundation. Once those parts are in and functioning, we can keep tuning the feel of the system and expand from there. There is already 2/3's of the system in as it stands and we've been showing them off weekly at the CERC HQ's.

What Comes Next

Civilian Evacuation comes first. After that, we close out the last remaining gameplay pillars of the rebuild. Carrier and deployment systems

• Get the LHA 6 moving again.

• Restore elevator functionality.

• Bring back the LCAC as the deployable hovercraft transport.

Operator finalization

• Operator driving

• UI pass for Gunsmith + Base UI

• Shooting polish.

• Interoperability with RTS Elements (Opening Gates, building units etc)

• Being able to build bases on their own

• Airstrike/Support "Laze" support

AI polish

• Infected AI refinement to improve attacking/defending logic

• Leviathan reintegration(See Legacy)

• Lieutenant reintegration for the infected faction.

  • LT's take up control of sub zones for Chelsey and influence mutations on the infection in those zones to make combating them slightly different. I.E a Spitter that can cloak or a Blowup guy that leaves a huge infection cloud when he dies.

  • LT AI push with Chelsey to make them more deadly

Dynamic Civilian Groups

After AI polish, the last remaining part of the wider core gameplay loop moves into Quarter 2 of 2026.

This stage focuses on the world simulation layer through dynamic civilian groups, the Police faction AI , Natalie’s Anarchists AI , and one civilian factions.

What this includes

• AI Police faction: A non playable faction that helps simulate law, order, containment, and local response across the world.

• AI Natalie’s Anarchists faction: A non playable faction force meant to create pressure, disorder, and conflict across the map.

• AI Civilian faction: A non playable faction that help make the world feel more reactive, more alive, and less centered purely around the player.

What these factions do

These factions are not traditional player factions. They exist to simulate the world around you and add another layer to the strategic environment.

• Some may help you.

• Some may hate you.

• Some may shift over time depending on how the match develops and how you deal with them.

How you will interact with them

The most basic elements being able to coordinate with them, buy units from them, and use their support to reinforce your own forces when it makes sense.

You will be able to work with these groups at a basic level more will be revealed in Q2.

Why this matters

This is one of the last major steps in pushing the game beyond the rebuild and into a more reactive world simulation.

Instead of every force existing only as a direct extension of the player, these groups will act as independent actors inside the world and help shape the larger conflict around you.

🎙️ Next CERC HQ – Livestream Details

🕔 When: Weekly Saturdays – 7 PM EST (New Time!)

💬 What is CERC HQ:

Welcome to Cepheus Protocol HQ, your ultimate weekly briefing on all things Cepheus Protocol! Join the Halcyon Winds team as we explore the latest updates, reveal behind-the-scenes development stories, and answer community questions about the game. From exciting new features to design challenges, this is your all-access pass to the evolving world of Cepheus Protocol. Tune in every week and stay ahead of the outbreak!

• Co-op Progress

• Total Revamp based on Community Feedback

• Level Design Updates

📺 Where to Watch:

• YouTube Livestream

• Discord Server

• Steam Page

🎤 Don’t miss our Live Q&A! We’ll be answering questions from the community during the stream.

📺 Missed a Stream? No Worries!

• YouTube VOD Playlist

• Spotify Podcast Archive (VODs may take 24 hours to appear)

Phase 2 is coming to a close within the next 24 hours as we finish the final adjustments to the bird systems. With that work wrapping up, development is already moving forward into the next major system update. Civilian Evacuation 2.0 Civilian Evacuation 2.0 is a complete revamp of legacy systems built on several years of community feedback. The upcoming development cycle is focused on delivering this system from implementation through completion. Alongside this, the first pieces of the new DNA systems will begin appearing early next week.

• DNA drops will begin appearing in infected areas

• Scientists will be able to collect DNA

• A new DNA farming structure will allow passive DNA generation

The DNA farming structure can be placed inside infected zones where it will generate DNA passively based on the infection level of that area. Higher infection zones will produce more DNA over time. However, deploying these structures will attract horde responses as infected attempt to destroy them, and the number of structures that can be built will be globally limited. DNA will feed into research that improves unit resilience and supports Civilian Evacuation research as players continue learning more about the virus. CERC HQ Podcast Tonight Tonight we will be covering:

• The design direction for Civilian Evacuation 2.0

• How the DNA systems work

• How these mechanics connect together

If you want an early look at what we are building next for Cepheus Protocol, I recommend dropping into the broadcast. Watch the Stream YouTube Watch Live on YouTube Discord Event Join the Discord Event Next Saturday we will show an incremental update demonstrating the progress made following the systems discussed in tonight’s stream.

The virus is loose across the Bay Area. Flashpoints are erupting across the peninsula as entire districts fall into chaos and infected swarms push deeper into civilian zones.

CERC forces are already in the field.

Embedded military reporters and frontline operators are transmitting battlefield coverage directly from active operations. The images you are about to see were captured during recent combat deployments across the region.

These transmissions come directly from the front.

The battle for the Bay Area has begun.

Developer Update This Week

This week was focused on stability, balance, and finishing key systems before the next big push.

Last week we laid the foundation with client side prediction for projectiles. This week we finished the remaining save system work tied to that update and continued pushing through bugs, reports, and gameplay concerns raised by the community.

Save System Completed

The save and load system now properly supports the major abilities and effects that were still being finalized.

This includes the MOAB, gas attack, dragon gunship, napalm, and other related systems. These now save and load correctly, which was an important step in making the current build more stable and complete.

Balance Changes and Power Cost Revisions

A large part of this week was spent working directly with feedback from players on Steam and Discord.

We took longer than expected to push this build because we used the week to review balance concerns in detail, especially around power costs and the overall pacing of expansion and control. We have been lowering values, adjusting them, and testing different directions throughout the entire week to get things closer to a state that feels right.

The current direction slows the game down a bit and adds more thought to building, expanding, and securing zones. That extra layer of planning is intentional, but we are still actively reviewing it and we want to hear how it feels once more players get time with it this weekend.

Releasing to the Public This Weekend

We still believe releasing this build to the public this weekend will give us the final push needed to solidify the current balance pass.

Please jump in, test it, and let us know what feels good and what still needs work. The feedback we get going into this weekend and into next week will directly influence the next round of changes.

Michael and Leon will both be reviewing what players are saying and using that feedback to decide what should be adjusted further.

Also expect 2 more guns into the weekend for the Operator as shadow patches

Community Feedback Threads

To help keep balance discussions organized, Leon will be setting up a master feedback thread on Steam, along with a matching thread on Discord.

The goal is to create a clear place for players to post concerns, thoughts, and suggestions about the game’s balance as a whole. Cepheus Protocol is a complicated game and it is only getting more involved, so having a focused place for feedback will help us respond more effectively.

Bug Fixes and Stability Work

Outside of balance, we spent a lot of time this week working through bug reports and community feedback.

Right now our short term focus is on the last vehicle pathfinding bugs, helicopter pathfinding issues, freezes, desyncs, and remaining performance concerns. The goal is to get these final issues under control as we continue stabilizing the build.

Network Optimization Progress

At this point, we believe the current round of network optimization is largely complete.

There may still be edge cases here and there, but compared to the previous week, we were able to reduce network traffic by roughly 80 percent across the board. That improvement came largely from working closely with the community and collecting logs from active testing.

We expect to revisit networking again later as new mechanics come online, but for now things are in a much stronger place.

CERC HQ Time Change

CERC HQ now has a new start time.

The weekly podcast and Q and A will now begin at 7 PM Eastern Standard Time instead of 3 PM Eastern Standard Time.

Closing

Thank you again to everyone testing, reporting issues, and sharing feedback on Steam and Discord.

A lot of the progress this week came directly from that back and forth with the community, and it is helping us tighten up both the game’s technical foundation and its overall balance.

March Roadmap and Short Term Priorities

March is about locking the rebuild foundation and finishing the remaining carryover items. Some February work is continuing into early March by design. We are prioritizing long term stability over rushed deadlines. To be direct, we rushed major systems in Legacy and it created instability, and we are not repeating that mistake. It is fair to be excited for Civilian Evacuation, but we need the next week or so to iron out what is already in place. We appreciate the continued patience while we work through the remaining items below.

First up: Player Concerns feedback from this poll

• Pathfinding improvements and formation system fixes

• Bug fixing across Pandemic and core systems

• Small quality of life changes that improve flow and usability

Runner up: Remaining Roadmap Elements Before Civilian Evac

• Infected Birds to improve mid and late game Infected counters so sessions do not overly rely on Juggernauts

• AJAX Avenger

• SAM Site Turret

Civilian Evacuation Roadmap

Once the above stability work and Infected Birds are complete, we will shift fully into Civilian Evac.

• Each player to manage their own evacuation camps

• Full multiplayer compatibility

• Single player parity

Link to Civilian Evacuation Steam thread

Patch Notes

• Ground Vehicle AI Pathing improvements.

  • When Vehicles were given move orders off the navigation I.E on top of rooftops/on top of CERC structures their pathing would break down. Used this filtering to let ChaosVehicleAI try to 'cut out' any move orders to the top of skyscrapers/etc to avoid this when needed.

  • Also set up ChaosVehicleAI to Halt if given a move command request that completely fails (so if the vehicle was moving, it won't 'stop pathfinding' while still holding throttle/turn at current values, which is really bad) caused them to phase into objects etc

• Helicopter Vehicle AI Pathing improvements.

  • Fixed a fast rope pathing bug where if you were nested between 2 buildings and gave a fast rope order sometimes you could get them to slam into the structure instead of going around or over it.

  • Fixed an issue with helicopter nav where units would not understand they needed to "gain" altitude when given a move order on a rooftop for a building they are next to

• Fixed a bug where Mortar class weapons could incorrectly ignore Attack ground orders and instead auto target units live in the map based on proximity.

• Fixed a bug where the Central point of your base could be incorrectly calculated in highly complex layouts confusing Attack parties.

• Vision Grid/Line of Sight bug fixed related to all units sometimes seeing objects they have no business seeing allowing them to "lock" on to targets outside their range effectively causing them to freeze up or stop responding to stimuli

  • Ex: Guard Towers are tall. If you set a Guard Tower behind an in-world wall, then build something short in between that Guard Tower and the wall, units outside the wall will see whatever's between them and the Guard Tower even though a wall is blocking the short object. Juggernauts and other units were seeing sandbags/etc. that were 'in front' of the Guard Tower but 'behind' the concrete wall

    • Result: Units are far less likely to see things they ought not and malfunction.

  We are not done yet and pathing fixes will continue into Monday-Tuesday!

🎙️ Next CERC HQ – Livestream Details

🕔 When: Weekly Saturdays – 7 PM EST (New Time!)

💬 What is CERC HQ:

Welcome to Cepheus Protocol HQ, your ultimate weekly briefing on all things Cepheus Protocol! Join the Halcyon Winds team as we explore the latest updates, reveal behind-the-scenes development stories, and answer community questions about the game. From exciting new features to design challenges, this is your all-access pass to the evolving world of Cepheus Protocol. Tune in every week and stay ahead of the outbreak!

• Co-op Progress

• Total Revamp based on Community Feedback

• Level Design Updates

📺 Where to Watch:

• YouTube Livestream

• Discord Server

• Steam Page

🎤 Don’t miss our Live Q&A! We’ll be answering questions from the community during the stream.

📺 Missed a Stream? No Worries!

• YouTube VOD Playlist

• Spotify Podcast Archive (VODs may take 24 hours to appear)

Developer Update This Week

This week was focused on stability, balance, and finishing key systems before the next big push.

Last week we laid the foundation with client side prediction for projectiles. This week we finished the remaining save system work tied to that update and continued pushing through bugs, reports, and gameplay concerns raised by the community.

Save System Completed

The save and load system now properly supports the major abilities and effects that were still being finalized.

This includes the MOAB, gas attack, dragon gunship, napalm, and other related systems. These now save and load correctly, which was an important step in making the current build more stable and complete.

Balance Changes and Power Cost Revisions

A large part of this week was spent working directly with feedback from players on Steam and Discord.

We took longer than expected to push this build because we used the week to review balance concerns in detail, especially around power costs and the overall pacing of expansion and control. We have been lowering values, adjusting them, and testing different directions throughout the entire week to get things closer to a state that feels right.

The current direction slows the game down a bit and adds more thought to building, expanding, and securing zones. That extra layer of planning is intentional, but we are still actively reviewing it and we want to hear how it feels once more players get time with it this weekend.

Releasing to the Public This Weekend

We still believe releasing this build to the public this weekend will give us the final push needed to solidify the current balance pass.

Please jump in, test it, and let us know what feels good and what still needs work. The feedback we get going into this weekend and into next week will directly influence the next round of changes.

Michael and Leon will both be reviewing what players are saying and using that feedback to decide what should be adjusted further.

Also expect 2 more guns into the weekend for the Operator as shadow patches

Community Feedback Threads

To help keep balance discussions organized, Leon will be setting up a master feedback thread on Steam, along with a matching thread on Discord.

The goal is to create a clear place for players to post concerns, thoughts, and suggestions about the game’s balance as a whole. Cepheus Protocol is a complicated game and it is only getting more involved, so having a focused place for feedback will help us respond more effectively.

Bug Fixes and Stability Work

Outside of balance, we spent a lot of time this week working through bug reports and community feedback.

Right now our short term focus is on the last vehicle pathfinding bugs, helicopter pathfinding issues, freezes, desyncs, and remaining performance concerns. The goal is to get these final issues under control as we continue stabilizing the build.

Network Optimization Progress

At this point, we believe the current round of network optimization is largely complete.

There may still be edge cases here and there, but compared to the previous week, we were able to reduce network traffic by roughly 80 percent across the board. That improvement came largely from working closely with the community and collecting logs from active testing.

We expect to revisit networking again later as new mechanics come online, but for now things are in a much stronger place.

CERC HQ Time Change

CERC HQ now has a new start time.

The weekly podcast and Q and A will now begin at 7 PM Eastern Standard Time instead of 3 PM Eastern Standard Time.

Closing

Thank you again to everyone testing, reporting issues, and sharing feedback on Steam and Discord.

A lot of the progress this week came directly from that back and forth with the community, and it is helping us tighten up both the game’s technical foundation and its overall balance.

March Roadmap and Short Term Priorities

March is about locking the rebuild foundation and finishing the remaining carryover items. Some February work is continuing into early March by design. We are prioritizing long term stability over rushed deadlines. To be direct, we rushed major systems in Legacy and it created instability, and we are not repeating that mistake. It is fair to be excited for Civilian Evacuation, but we need the next week or so to iron out what is already in place. We appreciate the continued patience while we work through the remaining items below.

First up: Player Concerns feedback from this poll

• Pathfinding improvements and formation system fixes

• Bug fixing across Pandemic and core systems

• Small quality of life changes that improve flow and usability

Runner up: Remaining Roadmap Elements Before Civilian Evac

• Infected Birds to improve mid and late game Infected counters so sessions do not overly rely on Juggernauts

• AJAX Avenger

• SAM Site Turret

Civilian Evacuation Roadmap

Once the above stability work and Infected Birds are complete, we will shift fully into Civilian Evac.

• Each player to manage their own evacuation camps

• Full multiplayer compatibility

• Single player parity

Link to Civilian Evacuation Steam thread

Patch Notes

• New Gas Tower VFX

  • Added Infection Motes that pollute the screen. They get visually stronger the closer you get to the center of said gas zone

  • Added a vignette effect for when Operators/RTS units move their camera into gas zones

• Lowered medical tent power requirement on 75

• Lowered cost of T1-T3 walls

• Increased the cost of Hesco T1 a bit

• Ammo count fixed on the MDR

• Reduced recoil for the MDR and reduced spread

• Fixed an issue where the Juggernaut Ground Stomp would not affect Vehicles

• Fixed some Juggernaut issues where could drop their car on accident or just move while throwing

• Fixed an issue where Juggernauts would walk on certain CERC structures,

• Fixed Projectiles for clients not going through allied objects correctly

• Fixed Guard Towers not properly blocking CERC shooting. Made it so the guard tower windows "lock up" when power is lost

• Converted SpringBok to a light vehicle instead of Heavy

• Adjusted Motor pool/barracks no build radius to make it more accurate to the actual safe margin they need to operate

• Removed Save system from Todo on pause menu

• Improvements to movement logic and debugging to fix Juggernaut 'stuck' issues

• Fixed an AI bug where units could break out of "Stun" due to a C++ Race Condition

• Improved Juggernaut Throwing Calculations to improve their accuracy and lower their failure rate

• Guard tower power decreased to 50 over 100

• Fixed a logic issue when adding a weapon to a garrisoned unit that failed to hide said weapon if the unit was in a visible-but-not-shooting-enabled seat

• Fixes for Structure location save/load, related to saving when Skycrane was en route back to the Carrier

• Set up save/load of unit groups for host/clients (if they're present at loadgame time, for now: does not yet remember when rejoining after being in-match)

• Fixed CERC units turning oddly in vehicles they were garrisoned inside that they could fire from

• Fixes to AA12 and TAC21 unlocks to properly unlock for all infantry instead of only for specific units: this fixes Winter not being able to access these weapons after unlocking them

• Fixed Clients recruiting to groups not working sometimes from the recruit menu

• Fixed up Operators not obeying the Group selection dropdown on the Recruit Popup

• Made it so switching between Operator/RTS remembers your zone render status so u don't have to fix it every time you switch between modes

• Lowered the Power requirements of Double gates T1-T3 to range from 20-60

• Added basic description to the Engineer Decoration Shop button (so it doesn't say the generic back-button description when highlighted)

• Updated the CERC Custom Sign decoration to save/load its text

• Fixed Squads creating "ghost" units when someone was killed

• Field Medics (Infantry) Not Treating Injured Troops "Hold Fire on"

  https://discord.com/channels/469412014427602944/1477704551258783934/1477704551258783934

• Fixed Money splitting error where you would lose money randomly when splitting equally amongst all players

• Fixed Guard towers not counting kills correctly, same with occupied AJAX's for units that shot from it

• Fixed Crash

  https://discord.com/channels/469412014427602944/1476808942477774939/1476808942477774939

• Fixed

  https://discord.com/channels/469412014427602944/1477665468318744606/1477665468318744606

• Braking logic to 'stay in formation' now tries to scale braking instead of always putting brake to full strength as soon as we're 'too far ahead': also no longer applies if we're not 'speeding' relative to other members

• Vehicles in an incomplete formation move (i.e. still moving to target with teammates) will no longer temporarily think they 'finished moving' and turn on handbrake: this fix greatly mitigates 'stuttering' from heavy vehicles moving with soldiers

• Adjustments to HealthComponent XP/Doctrine XP/kill crediting to only work if target is not on same faction

• Adjustments to Instigator-setting for projectiles that spawn Environmental Hazards (and for saving/loading said hazards) so kill-credit goes through correctly for them

• Fixed Helicopters on HMB Horde Rush not being able to enter the area. They now spawn over the helipad they are built at to respect that maps unique setup

• Save/load improved for call-ins so MOAB doesn't 'disappear' if you save right after calling it in, before it's detached from the plane

• Added a darkened background to the custom game description as well

• Set up the Input Rebinding Widget to have a darkened background, to make it easier to read

• Crash fix for TickComponent() \

• Additional safeties added to client side prediction for helicopters for crashes reported

• Fixed Charon weapon pylons being visible without weapons equipped.

• Fixed SOCs being able to be built anywhere via an exploit

• Added SOC's to engineer build bar for T2 and T3 so you can skip the process of building a T1 first.

  Also in this patch!

🎙️ Next CERC HQ – Livestream Details

🕔 When: Weekly Saturdays – 7 PM EST (New Time!)

💬 What is CERC HQ:

Welcome to Cepheus Protocol HQ, your ultimate weekly briefing on all things Cepheus Protocol! Join the Halcyon Winds team as we explore the latest updates, reveal behind-the-scenes development stories, and answer community questions about the game. From exciting new features to design challenges, this is your all-access pass to the evolving world of Cepheus Protocol. Tune in every week and stay ahead of the outbreak!

• Co-op Progress

• Total Revamp based on Community Feedback

• Level Design Updates

📺 Where to Watch:

• YouTube Livestream

• Discord Server

• Steam Page

🎤 Don’t miss our Live Q&A! We’ll be answering questions from the community during the stream.

📺 Missed a Stream? No Worries!

• YouTube VOD Playlist

• Spotify Podcast Archive (VODs may take 24 hours to appear)

Developer Update This Week

Save and Load System Expansion

Continued System Coverage

This week was heavily focused on expanding Save and Load support across additional systems.

Save and Load support has now been implemented for:

• Projectiles

• Grenades

• TOW systems

• Flares

• Select airstrikes

Not all airstrikes are currently supported.

The following are not yet saving and loading correctly:

• MOAB

• Gas Attack

• Dragon

These remain excluded for now and will be addressed next. Please refer to the list at the bottom of the Save and Load tracker for full status details.

A significant portion of development time also went into fixing desync issues, multiplayer inconsistencies, and general stability problems discovered during live testing.

Multiplayer Stress Testing

We ran several gameplay balance tests sessions with up to 10 players over this week on discord publicly.

Between Day 5 and Day 10 of those sessions, we identified network degradation under sustained load. What began as balance observation turned into a deep replication and bandwidth stress test.

We collected from those present in the balance test:

• Player logs

• Save files

• Replication behavior data

Using that information, we recreated the failure points internally and identified where replication cost was ballooning. Several community suggestions were also implemented and are reflected in the patch notes.

Network Optimization Results

After restructuring key replication paths, overall network traffic cost was reduced by approximately 70 to 80 percent.

For players, this should translate into:

• Increased stability at higher player counts

• Reduced late game desync escalation

• Improved host performance under heavy load

Replication cost scales with player count. Every additional client increases outbound state replication from the host. Reducing baseline replication overhead was critical for scalability and large sessions!

Client Simulated Projectiles

Architectural Shift

Projectiles are now client simulated while remaining fully server authoritative for damage.

The flow now operates as follows:

• The server calculates and validates damage

• Clients deterministically simulate projectile visuals locally

• Authority remains strictly on the server

Clients do not determine outcomes. They only reconstruct visuals from server instructions. This significantly reduces bandwidth while maintaining security and integrity.

This is the first implementation of this system and is currently available only on Experimental.

Because this system also integrates with Save and Load, it requires live stress testing before public release. We will be monitoring for issues involving:

• Saved projectile state

• Late join synchronization

• Cross client consistency

Internal testing has not produced breakage so far.

Infrastructure and Power Rebalance

Increased Strategic Weight

This Experimental patch also introduces structural balance adjustments centered around power and logistics.

Previously, expansion could occur with minimal infrastructure consideration. Power functioned more as a soft requirement than a strategic constraint.

Changes now include:

• SOC's require active power

• Increased power costs across major structures

• Tier 2 and Tier 3 generators carry real strategic value

• Barracks, Motor Pool, and related structures require stronger planning

The intent is to increase the weight of:

• Builders

• Infrastructure

• Logistics chains

• Territorial expansion planning

Expanding into new zones now requires deliberate infrastructure rather than opportunistic placement.

We are specifically looking for feedback on pacing and pressure introduced by these adjustments.

Ongoing Stability Work

In addition to Save and Load expansion, we continued working on:

• Multiplayer desync reduction

• Replication optimization

• Save and Load bug fixes

• General performance improvements

The Save and Load system is approximately 3/4's complete. The target is to reach functional completion by Monday or Tuesday of next week. Once that milestone is reached, development focus will shift fully toward pathfinding, desync cleanup, and systemic polish.

March Roadmap and Short Term Priorities

March is about locking the rebuild foundation and finishing the remaining carryover items. Some February work is continuing into early March by design. We are prioritizing long term stability over rushed deadlines. To be direct, we rushed major systems in Legacy and it created instability, and we are not repeating that mistake. It is fair to be excited for Civilian Evacuation, but we need the next week or so to iron out what is already in place. We appreciate the continued patience while we work through the remaining items below.

After we wrap up the save/load early next week ->

First up: Player Concerns feedback from this poll

• Pathfinding improvements and formation system fixes

• Bug fixing across Pandemic and core systems

• Small quality of life changes that improve flow and usability

Runner up: Remaining Roadmap Elements Before Civilian Evac

• Infected Birds to improve mid and late game Infected counters so sessions do not overly rely on Juggernauts

• AJAX Avenger

• SAM Site Turret

Civilian Evacuation Roadmap

Once the above stability work and Infected Birds are complete, we will shift fully into Civilian Evac.

• Each player to manage their own evacuation camps

• Full multiplayer compatibility

• Single player parity

Link to Civilian Evacuation Steam thread

Patch Notes

Also in this patch

• MP5 was added to the Operator (Under the SMG specialization)

• MDR was added to the Operator(Under the DMR specialization)

• More Save Load support for the Direct Strike, White Phosphorus ( MOAB, Gas Dragon not done yet)

• Client Side Prediction added for Projectiles (Lowers network traffic by a HUGE amount)

• Tons of Network traffic Optimizations overall network traffic was cut by 70-80%. (Faction XP, Gibbing Data, Impact FX, and other various elements were heavily network optimized)

• Airstrike optimizations

• Nerfed smaw and Hellfire damage to Chelsey and Increased enraged DR when she gets below 50% health

• Increased base hellfire damage slightly

• MLRS projectile speed increased + Damage Radius

• Fixed up weapons to restore a relative 'last fire time' when saving/loading (so weapons with noticeable fire intervals, like spine turrets, don't get to fire instantly on loading save)

• Updates to client building placement to reduce or fully block attempts to 'set down multiple buildings on same spot' by spam clicking

• Updated Cannon turret weapon icon.

• Updated SOC icons and Doctrine descriptions.

• Updated VADS turret weapon icon.

• Updated Scout drone move preview.

• Muzzle Flash System reworked to solve desyncs & Stutter (Operator might have some issues going into Monday its a known issue we are looking into)

• Fixed Turret Flashlight dancing bug on clients at night time

• Fixed Flashlight attaching to the wrong location on turrets

• Fixed Muzzle FX attaching to the wrong location on Turrets

• Fixed Engineer/ Medic sometimes canceling a sprint order when they saw an enemy

• Fixed Projectiles after the client simulation update causing bogus collision at impact points

• Fixed Engineer Auto repair not working for CERC structures

• Adjusted some Power costs for the CERC Generator

• Updated garrison sockets for the Medical Ajax

• T1-T3 power audited to make them cost effective based on physical size + costs

• Updated Ajax non-driver seats to be angle-locked for now, to stop 'rotating seats' issues

• Resolved a fog of war issue where infected seeing a CERC structure would force that structure to "wake up".

• Added arrow key movement for RTS

• Fixed ToggleAutoRefillAmmo and RefillAmmo commands (for turrets) not functioning

• -Fixes for PlayerFaction-related 'race conditions' for clients: for clients this should greatly reduce instances of FOW vision, unit overhead UI, or unit visibility being 'incorrect' on late-joining or being a lobby that then loads a save

• Slightly increased visibility of Gas tower AOE markers.

• Updated A-10 gun run effects to spawn decals at Low settings.

• Increased Gas Tower health from 7500 to 12000.

• Gas Tower Reduced build speed by 50%

• Half Moon Bay and Treasure Island Zone borders were redrawn to better support the turret/guard tower build restrictions.

• Blocked Radioman being ferried on helicopters from expanding the call in area

• Made the minimum Attack faction 1 as setting it to 0 makes it revert back to stock numbers and removes the override

• Fixed another reported crash on the Operator

• Fixed visual bug on unit details panel for Power requirements

• Fixed toggle sprint not working

• Fixed MGL not working properly on Operators when you have AI use the weapon. They would always never account for the grenade drop

• Increased cooldown for Infection Pods & Gas Towers to 90 and 180 after they are destroyed to bring down the "wack a mole"

• Increased Requestion center XP tick by 50%.

• Rebalanced power requirements for T3 walls/gates

• Made Ammo tents cost power as with medical tents to Operate!

• Ammo Tent renamed into supply centers for all unit types for Gas/Ammo/Supply now supplies universally.

• Added new Power and infrastructure costs to all CERC structures including SOCS.

• Made SOCS T2-T3 require teching up through the Doctrine Tree

• Lower Bounties on Pandemic for killing all Infected types by 50%

• Lowered M2 Sentry reserve ammo by 50%

• Attack Move support added for Save/Load

• Bradley TOW now works for Save/Load

• Projectiles now Save/Load

• Increased Turret limit per zone to 12 like in legacy

• Fixed logic bug that allowed juggernauts to keep adding spawns after Day 6+. It could get up to crazy numbers

• Fixed a logic bug that could cause infected to freeze in combat

• Adjusted Chelsey's Spawn/Location placement code to stop her from sometimes going into the ground

• Fixed an issue with Structure getting the wrong Wall variant when save/loading

• Updated Guard Tower loading to properly spawn Tower Guards when construction is completed after being loaded from a save while still in the 'construction hologram' state

• Combat Flare Save/Loads

• Rally Points for clients Save/Load now (only if you're there at join time)

• Adjusted Custom Game Options and the Options Widget to have a darkened background behind the 'hover tip info' section, to make it more readable

• Fixed a bug where save/loading while a Skycrane was delivering a structure it would teleport back to the carrier and stay there

Known Limitations with save system

Most combat in Cepheus Protocol is hit scan, so the majority of gameplay is unaffected by saving mid-action. A small number of transient objects still require additional handling if you save at the exact wrong moment.

Updated save TBD list:

• Call in system (Only MOAB, Gunship & Gas don't Save/Load)

• Stun system

🎙️ Next CERC HQ – Livestream Details

🕔 When: Weekly Saturdays – 3 PM EST (New Time!)

💬 What is CERC HQ:

Welcome to Cepheus Protocol HQ, your ultimate weekly briefing on all things Cepheus Protocol! Join the Halcyon Winds team as we explore the latest updates, reveal behind-the-scenes development stories, and answer community questions about the game. From exciting new features to design challenges, this is your all-access pass to the evolving world of Cepheus Protocol. Tune in every week and stay ahead of the outbreak!

• Co-op Progress

• Total Revamp based on Community Feedback

• Level Design Updates

📺 Where to Watch:

• YouTube Livestream

• Discord Server

• Steam Page

🎤 Don’t miss our Live Q&A! We’ll be answering questions from the community during the stream.

📺 Missed a Stream? No Worries!

• YouTube VOD Playlist

• Spotify Podcast Archive (VODs may take 24 hours to appear)

Developer Update This Week

Save and Load System

This week was overwhelmingly focused on Save and Load.

A significant amount of time went into stabilizing the system, resolving reported issues from Discord and Steam, and expanding coverage across edge cases. The Operator in particular required more time than expected due to the complexity of his systems.

Operators are highly dynamic. If an Operator levels up during a run and you later load a save, the system replaces the saved instance with the most recent version of that Operator. If an Operator no longer exists, they are properly deleted and refunded.

In multiplayer, the logic mirrors this behavior. When a save is loaded:

• Operators are reassigned back to their original RTS players when possible • If a corresponding client cannot be found within a reasonable time window, the Operator is refunded

A substantial amount of R&D went into making sure this flow behaves predictably and does not create duplication, loss, or ownership issues. We continued expanding Save and Load support across systems and hardening the logic.

We are actively working through reported bugs and feel we are approaching a point where the Save and Load system can be functionally marked complete within the next few days. Once that milestone is reached, we can shift focus back to larger gameplay priorities.

Networking and Client Side Prediction

Client side prediction for vehicles of all calibers is now implemented.

In internal and external testing, including high ping scenarios between players in the United States and overseas regions such as Poland, vehicle movement is significantly smoother and more visually stable in cross region sessions.

We are continuing to monitor this closely and will iterate further over the next couple of patches. The goal is consistent responsiveness and visual fidelity regardless of geographic latency differences.

Upcoming Focus: Civilian Evac and Core Fixes

With Save and Load nearing completion, attention is shifting toward preparing for Civilian Evac.

This includes:

• Pathfinding fixes

• Performance optimizations

• General bug cleanup

• Infected Birds

• Additional quality of life improvements

One example currently being reviewed is improving building upgrade logic. Upgrading a long wall segment into a vehicle gate is one example we are looking at but also simple stuff like Operator scopes so they can zoom in and out.

We appreciate the continued patience while we push through this stabilization phase.

Patch Notes

Also in this patch

• Cleaned up description for Custom attack interval to make it more clearer what it does

• Fix for turrets failing to spawn their weapon if they were saved while still under construction, then you finish constructing them after loading the saved game

• Added Hellfire Missile to Sparrow as a T1 counter towards armor

• Added LAW as to the Engineer as a T1 counter towards armor

• Fixed a Loading issue that could duplicate Chelsey and/or her pod

• Fixed a MLRS visual sync bug where after reload sometimes they would desync

• Fixed Zone Widgets, when loading a save, not properly displaying the Infection Level % that they were at immediately after load (loading a zone that was at 100% might have caused it to never display the % again, but no more!)

• Updated handling of Unit destruction to turn on 'can be damaged' for structures that are loaded as 'invulnerable' from old saves due to rubble mode bug

• Fixed up rubble mode walls to properly load in rubble mode

• Updated structure upgrading to send out a warning when trying to upgrade a structure that's in Rubble Mode, instead of silently failing

• Updated destroyed player walls to be selectable (so you can clear them)

• Updated 'DestroyStructure' button to work on rubble walls, and to not refund their price (since they're destroyed)

• Adjustments to Custom Game Settings widget (and children sliders/toggles) =Scale/size/wrap-at values adjusted to make them fit better in thinner resolutions via either scaling or wrapping earlier instead of 'overlapping' one another

• Fix for the Custom Game Settings 'Starting Doctrine Points' slider initializing incorrectly from the Custom Starting Money value

• Fixed Sparrow broken after hellfire upgrade bug report

  https://discord.com/channels/469412014427602944/1474227783248121991/1474227783248121991

• Added Custom Game options of Infection Spread Rate 0.5->3.0

• Added Save/Load support for weapons so if you save during a reload they will resume that load at the exact frame they were on previously

• Added CERC Population Max up to 200. Exercise caution in lower spec machines as this will "push" your system to the edge and require higher spec machines if you are hosting.

• Resolved a source of the 'client Fog of War not initializing correctly when loading saves/late-joining' (i.e. GameStateRef not being valid when clients receive OnCERCChanged)

• Set up Exit Saving to exit TacPause, if you were in that state, so the game won't be in a 'frozen' limbo state until you remove TacPause after exit-saving

• Set up the Load Game button on the Pause Menu to not function (and have a hovertip describing why) while loaded into a game in multiplayer

• Updated Operator save/load for 'client operators' at save time to properly track and load their weapon attachments

• Fix for clients seeing 'more than one' of Recruits when loading into a save that had recruitment tickets already

• Fix for Operator loading for clients so that the mesh for their Operator will sync up

• More improvements to Operator recruitment save/load: recruitment ticket for an Operator will now 'remember' who it belonged to, and if that player is there when loading the map, the ticket will 'reassign' to that player, and properly behave

• Updated Operator recruitment tracker to try to reconnect with the recruiting Player on load, if that player is present at load time. If they are not, the recruitment tracker will refund instead

• Updated the Pause Menu/Main Menu to support an 'are you sure' popup, with a 'Save and Exit' button available on it when appropriate

• Set up savefiles to track their autosave count, so they'll keep iterating autosaves where they left off (instead of relying on a global autosave incrementor)

  • Autosaves are now 'per-campaign' rather than global, so if you have the Autosave Count set to 3, every campaign will have up to 3 autosaves for it (so if you play some multiplayer in between your solo sessions, you'll still have an autosave to return to, but you'll need to clear your old saves more often)

• Set up grenade save/load: grenades (or demo charges from Spec Ops) now save/load!

  • Grenades 'in-air' now remember that they were, and reinitialize after game loads

• Also set up aimed abilities to not try to re-activate when loading/syncing, so 'extra grenades' don't appear when loading a save if you saved while someone was in the throw-animation

• Set up call-in cooldowns to save/load for the ability system

• Fixed a bug where the juggernaut would fail to throw a car or it improperly falls out of his hand when not stunned

• Updated Motor pool preview to require open airspace above.

• Added a predictive gate opening system for vehicles that opens gates early based on each vehicle’s projected trajectory.

• Lowered Mutt and Mule max move speed by half

• Added base client side prediction for helicopters and ground vehicles to help solve visual jitter when clients have high ping

• Fixed drivers not getting XP from vehicles they are controlling,

• Tripled Unit leveling requirements for all units outside Operator

• Added rallypoint save/load (currently only host player saves data right now, but it is set up to support other players later when we get to that)

• Set up Zones to start saving/loading their last population count

• Started on 'unit custom settings' reader, set up a different hovertip button on loading games to list out the custom unit settings in that save

• Updated save/load menu 'custom infected options' display to show disabled enemies

Known Limitations with save system

Most combat in Cepheus Protocol is hitscan, so the majority of gameplay is unaffected by saving mid-action. A small number of transient objects still require additional handling if you save at the exact wrong moment.

Updated save TBD list:

• Queue attack order

• Call in system (airstrikes and support)

• Tow

• Flare

• Stun system

• Save other player data (rally points)

February Roadmap and Short-Term Priorities

As we move through February, the focus is on getting everything caught up to where the rebuild is intended to be, while continuing to stabilize and improve the core experience.

Immediate priority going into next week

• Finalizing remaining Pandemic save support, specifically transient gameplay objects

• Cleaning up any remaining edge cases surfaced by live usage

• Locking down save stability so it becomes a dependable baseline going forward

Following that addressing feedback from this poll

• Pathfinding improvements and fixes

• Bug fixing across Pandemic and core systems

• Small quality of life changes that improve flow and usability

Once those pieces are in a good place, we will shift focus toward Civilian Evacuation, targeted for late-February. This work is already underway, and the goal is to address the feedback and discussion outlined in the existing Steam thread below.

We will be sharing more details soon, including a live stream announcement about a week in advance. Keep an eye on Steam and our Discord for updates as we move through February.

Link to Civilian Evacuation Steam thread

🎙️ Next CERC HQ – Livestream Details

🕔 When: Weekly Saturdays – 3 PM EST (New Time!)

📺 Where to Watch:

• YouTube Livestream

• Discord Server

• Steam Page

💬 Topics We'll Cover:

• Co-op Progress

• Total Revamp based on Community Feedback

• Level Design Updates

🎤 Don’t miss our Live Q&A! We’ll be answering questions from the community during the stream.

📺 Missed a Stream? No Worries!

• YouTube VOD Playlist

• Spotify Podcast Archive (VODs may take 24 hours to appear)

Developer Update This Week

Second pass of the Pandemic Save System is now live on all branches, including the full Save and Load UI.

The first pass went live last Friday through a console command. This update moves saving and loading into a proper UI across all branches so everyone can use it normally while we continue hardening the flow.

• Save + Load UI is live on all branches

• Load menu shows which Custom Game Options were used for each save so you can tell runs apart

• Configurable autosave intervals are now in

• The system keeps the most recent 3 saves you can configure this

• We are actively hunting down Save and Load bugs as they are reported

Early game balance (Sparrow and Engineer changes)

• Engineer is getting a LAW added to help address T1 counters against the Juggernaut. More details on this soon!

• Sparrow is gaining a hellfire missile in the next week that will allow you better counter juggernaut's in T1

Operators

• P90 (SMG) and HCAR (LMG) are both in the game now

• You can start leveling SMG and LMG progression to unlock and use them

• We are continuing at 1 to 2 weapons per week through February to finish the Operator from a base weapon standpoint. They still need refinement and polish after Civilian Evac

Pathfinding Sit Down

Experimental includes systemic vehicle pathfinding fixes, but if you still see issues, we want to see them live.

Friday at 7:00 PM Eastern we are hosting a Discord sit-down for pathing and formation issues.

• The programmers will not be playing

• You must share your screen live and reproduce the issue or load a save

• Screenshots will not be accepted

We will have more to share on Saturday during CERC HQ as we continue pushing toward Civilian Evacuation mid to late February.

New Operator Skin for Honzo Lee called Urban

Patch Notes

Also in this patch

• Fixed drivers not getting XP from vehicles they are controlling

  • Also tripled unit leveling requirements for all units outside Operator

• Save improvements and new coverage:

  • Rallypoint save and load is in

    • Host only saves this data for now, but it is structured to support other players later

  • Zones now save and load their last population count

  • Ammobox save and load fixes

    • No more floating ammoboxes

    • Parachutes should despawn properly, or fall and disappear on load

• Save and Load menu improvements:

  • Overwrite in place behavior fixed when selecting an existing save and confirming overwrite

  • Cleaned up overwrite logic when Create Save uses an existing name

  • Custom infected options display now shows disabled enemies

  • Text formatting improvements for displaying custom unit settings

  • Started on unit custom settings reader

    • Added a dedicated hovertip button on Load to list custom unit settings in that save

  • Additional UI cleanup, including focus fixes and scaling improvements for thin resolutions

• Fixed a bug where loading a game could cause the UI to steal focus and leave you unable to control the game after loading

• Custom game options display initial pass:

  • Only detects options on saves made after this update

  • Older saves still work, but custom options will not be detected for display until you save again

• Autosave improvements:

  • Autosave count is now customizable in the options widget and properly respected

  • Autosave timer dynamically adjusts if you change the interval mid game

  • Initial autosave system pass is in

    • Runs on host only

• Unit Group Widgets now populate at game start and no longer disappear when a group goes empty. Previously the group boxes would not appear until you manually created a group, which caused confusion and led some players to think a grouping system did not exist. The interface is now visible from the start so it is clear that grouping is available. As always use CTRL + number key to group any selection of units

• Save list sorting: Save and Load list can now sort by timestamp and is now ordered by save date properly

Known Limitations with save system

Most combat in Cepheus Protocol is hitscan, so the majority of gameplay is unaffected by saving mid-action. A small number of transient objects still require additional handling if you save at the exact wrong moment.

Updated save TBD list:

• Queue attack order

• Call in system (airstrikes and support)

• Reload status for animation catchup

• Tow

• Grenades

• Flare

• Cloak

• Stun system

• Hit reaction (TBD)

• Cone of fire ability

• Delayed grenade explosion save support

• Save other player data (rally points)

• Save Operator data for clients for reloading them (after saving basic other player data)

February Roadmap and Short-Term Priorities

As we move through February, the focus is on getting everything caught up to where the rebuild is intended to be, while continuing to stabilize and improve the core experience.

Immediate priority going into next week

• Finalizing remaining Pandemic save support, specifically transient gameplay objects

• Cleaning up any remaining edge cases surfaced by live usage

• Locking down save stability so it becomes a dependable baseline going forward

Following that addressing feedback from this poll

• Pathfinding improvements and fixes

• Bug fixing across Pandemic and core systems

• Small quality of life changes that improve flow and usability

Once those pieces are in a good place, we will shift focus toward Civilian Evacuation, targeted for mid-February. This work is already underway, and the goal is to address the feedback and discussion outlined in the existing Steam thread below.

We will be sharing more details soon, including a live stream announcement about a week in advance. Keep an eye on Steam and our Discord for updates as we move through February.

Link to Civilian Evacuation Steam thread

🎙️ Next CERC HQ – Livestream Details

🕔 When: Weekly Saturdays – 3 PM EST (New Time!)

📺 Where to Watch:

• YouTube Livestream

• Discord Server

• Steam Page

💬 Topics We'll Cover:

• Co-op Progress

• Total Revamp based on Community Feedback

• Level Design Updates

🎤 Don’t miss our Live Q&A! We’ll be answering questions from the community during the stream.

📺 Missed a Stream? No Worries!

• YouTube VOD Playlist

• Spotify Podcast Archive (VODs may take 24 hours to appear)

Developer Update This Week

We shipped the second pass of the Pandemic Save System, which adds the Save and Load UI on Experimental.

The first pass went live Friday through a console command. This pass moves it into a real UI so you can actually use it without commands, and we can start hardening the full user flow.

• Save + Load UI is live on Experimental right now

• We are cleaning up the UI, removing negative space, and tightening the flow

• The Load menu will show which Custom Game Options were used for each save so you can tell runs apart

• Configurable autosave intervals are being added

• The system will always keep the most recent 3 saves

• We are actively hunting down Save and Load bugs reported by testers

Early game balance (Sparrow and Engineer changes)

• Engineer is getting a LAW added to help address T1 counters against the Juggernaut. More details on this soon!

• Sparrow is gaining a hellfire missile in the next week that will allow you better counter juggernaut's in T1

Operators

• P90 (SMG) and HCAR (LMG) are both in the game now

• You can start leveling SMG and LMG progression to unlock and use them

• We are continuing at 1 to 2 weapons per week through February to finish the Operator from a base weapon standpoint. They still need refinement and polish after Civilian Evac

Pathfinding Sit Down

Experimental includes systemic vehicle pathfinding fixes, but if you still see issues, we want to see them live.

Friday at 7:00 PM Eastern we are hosting a Discord sit-down for pathing and formation issues.

• The programmers will not be playing

• You must share your screen live and reproduce the issue or load a save

• Screenshots will not be accepted

We will have more to share on Saturday during CERC HQ as we continue pushing toward Civilian Evacuation mid to late February.

New Operator Skin for Honzo Lee called Urban

Patch Notes

• Fixed background audio toggle not working under audio settings thanks!

  https://steamcommunity.com/app/979640/discussions/0/3422186614307268124/

• CepheusProtocol!UPanelWidget::GetChildrenCount() Fixed crash on widget from

  https://discord.com/channels/469412014427602944/1471026570310189066/1471026570310189066

• Fixed a failure in the cleanup pass where offline games could fail to load because of a overzealous cleanup pass for preplaced LDD assets

• Fixed scout drone rotor blur staying on when engines are off.

• Crash fix for !bPostEvaluatingAnimation

• Fixed an instance where grenades would fail to garbage collection/be deleted. Will fix clients seeing the satchel countdown when they join a game too long after its no longer relevant.

• Added a dynamic scaling + custom render depth to the patrol object to make it more obvious when they are used.

• Reworded Patrol to make it more clear how to use it and how it works

• Refactored some Mortar logic that disallowed units too aggressively from firing if allied helicopters were overhead. Cleaned up some failsafe's that could block firing sometimes

• Fixed spitter flying away whenever they are killed .

• Fixed the main menu incorrectly resetting the Pandemic activity log to give hosts time to backup their log if they want

• Fixed Abrams and bigger vehicles being able to shoot while parachuting which would allow them to "flip" over from the force applied to shoot https://discord.com/channels/469412014427602944/1328461311599968318/1470988237530071092

• Removed debug Cerberuss from map Bay area beta

• Unarmed Units on Patrol/Attack order no longer "pause"

  https://discord.com/channels/469412014427602944/1328461311599968318/1470980752421290079

• Updated tooltips under visual options to be more clear on when and how they work

• Added a ban system that is managed via a JSON file under Cepheus Protocol\\CepheusProtocol\\Saved\\Moderation because of reported trolling

  • Added a ban list to the player list when a host presses F1 and a local JSON database for server hosts to keep a persistent ban record

    • We added the ability to ban users permanently from any game session you ever host. Users also show up in the "activity log"

    • so if you decide you want to ban someone later on you can look them up in ActivityLog.ini under Cepheus Protocol\\CepheusProtocol\\Saved . As all player actions are logged here! for the last Pandemic session only on the host machine

    • Ban lists can be shared easily online and users can maintain their own blacklists. We will look into an official ban list in the future that servers can opt into so we can track bad actors and allow hosts to filter them out by default.

{

"Bans": \

{

}

]

}

• Set up a fix for Population Tents failing to restore their population limit increase on loading a save

• Set up custom game settings to properly save/load per-file

• Updated gate-loading to properly re-enable the 'automatic check for units' loop if automatic was on, instead of having to toggle it on/off =Gate-loading will also fast-forward the open/close animation on load

• Fixed up Engine Component to save/load its engine speed and load it more safely

• Applied a fix to SOC construction points disappearing if the SOC attached to them gets destroyed

• Committed some pathing improvements to gate interactions, refined some landscables that vehicles would malfunction when impacting.

• Tweaked the cost of pathing for vehicles a bit more so they path find better

• Adjusted the sizes of infected far-distance markers and colors so all infected have unique colors

• P90 added to operator,

• Mini tweak to ar recoil,

• increased p90 damage.

• Fixed pooling issue with unit overhead icons

• Fixed various projectile trail effects disappearing instantly on hit.

• Reduced the intensity of infected markers in Night vision.

• Reduced the intensity of lit world buildings' windows in Night vision.

• UPDATED HCAR RECOIL for Operators

• Improved Backdrop mountain materials.

• Crash fix for https://steamcommunity.com/app/979640/discussions/0/760680362677623094/?ctp=2

• Fixed Structures sometimes failing to match their load data

• Fixed up walls getting the 'wrong mesh' when loading from a save

• Skycrane loading greatly improved so it no longer resets back to the carrier on load

• Fixed a rare power component crash in FinalizeMeshAfterConstruction

• Replication- and savegame-related fixes so Supply values (ammobox, barracks, etc.) save properly, and display properly on clients when loaded

• Fixed destroyed landscape objects not syncing their state if they were destroyed previously

Known Limitations with save system

Most combat in Cepheus Protocol is hitscan, so the majority of gameplay is unaffected by saving mid-action. A small number of transient objects still require additional handling if you save at the exact wrong moment.

Current priority list:

• Mortars: rounds in flight and pending impacts

• Airstrikes: active strike projectiles and queued strike events

• Grenades: thrown explosives mid air or mid fuse

• Flares: active flares and deployed effects

February Roadmap and Short-Term Priorities

As we move through February, the focus is on getting everything caught up to where the rebuild is intended to be, while continuing to stabilize and improve the core experience.

Immediate priority going into next week

• Finalizing remaining Pandemic save support, specifically transient gameplay objects

• Cleaning up any remaining edge cases surfaced by live usage

• Locking down save stability so it becomes a dependable baseline going forward

Following that addressing feedback from this poll

• Pathfinding improvements and fixes

• Bug fixing across Pandemic and core systems

• Small quality of life changes that improve flow and usability

Once those pieces are in a good place, we will shift focus toward Civilian Evacuation, targeted for mid-February. This work is already underway, and the goal is to address the feedback and discussion outlined in the existing Steam thread below.

We will be sharing more details soon, including a live stream announcement about a week in advance. Keep an eye on Steam and our Discord for updates as we move through February.

Link to Civilian Evacuation Steam thread

🎙️ Next CERC HQ – Livestream Details

🕔 When: Weekly Saturdays – 3 PM EST (New Time!)

📺 Where to Watch:

• YouTube Livestream

• Discord Server

• Steam Page

💬 Topics We'll Cover:

• Co-op Progress

• Total Revamp based on Community Feedback

• Level Design Updates

🎤 Don’t miss our Live Q&A! We’ll be answering questions from the community during the stream.

📺 Missed a Stream? No Worries!

• YouTube VOD Playlist

• Spotify Podcast Archive (VODs may take 24 hours to appear)

Developer Update This Week

This week was about momentum and payoff.

Coming straight off the Doctrines release, we were able to get a workable first pass of Pandemic saves running within about a week. That speed is a direct result of the rebuild work done throughout 2025. The foundation now allows us to ship meaningful systems quickly, efficiently, and without destabilizing the game.

Pandemic saves are built around a unified authoritative world state. That is what allows:

• Starting a run solo and continuing it later with friends

• Starting a run with friends and continuing it solo

The system is currently exposed through a console command while we finalize the UI and finish expanding save coverage. Over the next several days we will be focused on:

• Finalizing transient object save support

• Hunting down any remaining edge cases

• Polishing the user facing flow before making this fully accessible

We want you to push it. Try weird scenarios. Start solo, bring friends in later. Start co-op, finish it solo. That feedback is exactly what helps us lock this in properly.

Thanks again for the collaboration we have had with our community. You guys are the best, and we cannot wait to show you what else we have planned going into mid-February through the end of February for Civilian Evacuation.

We will be hosting a live stream and announcing it one week out, so keep an eye on Steam and our Discord for the latest.

Operator Weapons

More weapons will be dropping for the RTS/TPS operators at 1-2 a week for February as we work to fill out his toolset! There are currently 20 weapons planned for the base release.

Next up is the P90 which you'll get next week!

This patch added a new LMG weapon for Operators called the HCAR.

New Operator Skin for Honzo Lee called Urban

Patch Notes

• Added an initial console command based Pandemic save and load system

  • This is a functional first pass so you can start saving runs immediately. A full UI based save system, similar to Legacy, is in progress and will replace this over the next few days going into early next week.

  • Commands (single word): savegame and loadgame use the ` key to access the console

    • Examples:

      • Save: savegame Test1

      • Load: loadgame Test1

  • Host only rules:

    • Only the host can save. Clients cannot save.

    • Only the host can load. Clients cannot load.

  • Where loading works:

    • Co-op: the host must return to the hub first, then run loadgame from the hub. If you try to load while still in a map with other players connected, nothing will happen. This is not a bug.

    • Offline: you can load a save at any time from any map.

  • The save system also makes it easier to resume sessions and rehost lobbies later, including kicking players, changing passwords, and maintaining more control over your sessions.

Known Limitations with save system

Most combat in Cepheus Protocol is hitscan, so the majority of gameplay is unaffected by saving mid-action. A small number of transient objects still require additional handling if you save at the exact wrong moment.

Current priority list:

• Mortars: rounds in flight and pending impacts

• Airstrikes: active strike projectiles and queued strike events

• Grenades: thrown explosives mid air or mid fuse

• Flares: active flares and deployed effects

These cases are actively being worked on, with fixes targeted for early next week.

• Material fix for generic glass translucent one sided and two sided instances on the hub

• Fixed TOW missile overshoot. If it loses target or overshoots, it now steers into the ground and explodes.

• TI Road navigation adjustments in the police station so they are less likely to use it for cross level transits

• Reduced intensity of AOE markers in Nightvision so its not as blinding

• HCAR LMG added to the Operator

• Clamped Gunsmith viewer input to reduce rotation flipping with fast mouse movement.

• HCAR added for the Operator. Tuned weapon XP for all live weapons.

• Shawnee nerf and Sparrow nerf, but buffed rocket pod damage.

• A10 gun run blast radius tweaked to better match AOE.

• Set RAM damage type so it barely damages Chelsey

• Nerfed C4 damage against CERC buildings.

• Updated TI marsh and park water to a static mesh setup instead of water components. to resolve the issue where it disappears sometimes

• Updated main menu to do and news ticker to latest to do's

• Changed networking settings to use Steam Sockets backend instead of the legacy method.

• Fixed achievements not working in the rebuild

• Lowered the gas tower growth rate by 1/3

• Fixed LOD issues on Honzo

• Moved pilot mesh glowstick location on Operator skin

• Reduced money on kill for certain infected types

• Added Patrol and Attack Move support to vehicles.

• Fixed a bug where units sometimes did not stop properly in Patrol or Attack Move when they saw an enemy.

• Fixed a case where BaseFilter GetCopy could crash on certain formation orders.

• Fixed Guard tower and per zone limits breaking on low quality internet connections or after you crashed and tried to reconnect

• Fixed up some issues with gates reporting the wrong state color when built in zones with no power.

• Fixed a client bug where sometimes you could buy items for free

• Fixed a client bug where you couldn't open the doctrines window

• Network traffic optimizations for all units

• Ironed out camera zooming to be more graceful and less janky.

• Made zooming in at high camera heights faster.

• Added in a major change to how vehicle AI operate for medium to long move orders where they no longer destroy objects and are only allowed to use roads/dirt. If they knock something over its completely on accident now. Example

• Fixed units fixating on units in vision range but not weapon range. This caused sometimes units to malfunction and stop shooting

• Construction sites on HMB and TI have been revamped to improve pathing so infected can reach them and vice versa.

• Half Moon bay horde rush now properly blocks helicopters from going out of bounds

• Fixed HMB issue where units sometimes caused multiple fences to go flying

• Fixed crash on Base Character UpdateThreatLevel.

• Fixed achievement bug for cache failing to resolve to Steam backend.

February Roadmap and Short-Term Priorities

As we move through February, the focus is on getting everything caught up to where the rebuild is intended to be, while continuing to stabilize and improve the core experience.

Immediate priority going into next week

• Finalizing remaining Pandemic save support, specifically transient gameplay objects

• Cleaning up any remaining edge cases surfaced by live usage

• Locking down save stability so it becomes a dependable baseline going forward

Following that addressing feedback from this poll

• Pathfinding improvements and fixes

• Bug fixing across Pandemic and core systems

• Small quality of life changes that improve flow and usability

Once those pieces are in a good place, we will shift focus toward Civilian Evacuation, targeted for mid-February. This work is already underway, and the goal is to address the feedback and discussion outlined in the existing Steam thread below.

We will be sharing more details soon, including a live stream announcement about a week in advance. Keep an eye on Steam and our Discord for updates as we move through February.

Link to Civilian Evacuation Steam thread

🎙️ Next CERC HQ – Livestream Details

🕔 When: Weekly Saturdays – 3 PM EST (New Time!)

📺 Where to Watch:

• YouTube Livestream

• Discord Server

• Steam Page

💬 Topics We'll Cover:

• Co-op Progress

• Total Revamp based on Community Feedback

• Level Design Updates

🎤 Don’t miss our Live Q&A! We’ll be answering questions from the community during the stream.

📺 Missed a Stream? No Worries!

• YouTube VOD Playlist

• Spotify Podcast Archive (VODs may take 24 hours to appear)

Patch Notes Summary (Jan 16 → Jan 30)

AI + Vehicle Pathing

• Improved ground vehicle pathing to reduce crashes and unnecessary driving through landscape objects. They should be a lot more intentional for when they decide to kool-aid man through walls

• Fixed large vehicles attempting to route through infantry-only gates

• Cleaned up navigation and collision in key zones (HMB + Treasure Island choke areas)

Performance + Stability

• Fixed Niagara StackWalkAndDump micro-stutter issue in heavy combat

• Fixed replicated DOT crashes under strain

• Multiple crash fixes (ResourceComponentSOC, closing-game timing crash, GetAlliedUnits crash)

• Projectile and spitter net traffic optimizations to reduce rubber banding

Airstrikes + Call-In System

• Airstrike balance pass with cooldowns ranging from 5–7s up to 360s (MOAB) Global Cooldown system!

• Updated Call-In visuals and graphics

• Added Ammo Crate call-ins

• Added Gas Strike to airstrike system

• Dragon Gunship duration increased to 60s

• MOAB now deals absolute damage (cover no longer blocks)

Juggernaut + Special Infected Fixes

• Fixed Juggernaut roar causing car drop/glitch behavior

• Applied fixes for Juggernaut rubber banding

• Slowed down gas tower expansion speed by 50% and doubled survivable time inside gas zones by 50%

• Scientist and Spitter immune to gas call in strike

Doctrines UI + Progression

• Major Doctrine UI polish: resizing, spacing, margins, icon updates, localization updates

• Added starting Doctrine Points option in Custom Game Settings

• Increased Doctrine level cap from 500 → 800 to resolve some bugs reported during experimental of people running out of points to spend after we made some upgrades a bit more expensive

• Fixed multiple doctrine unlock issues (walls, barbed wire, cannon turret, guard tower M107)

• Some text was updated like Flashbang cooldown reduction percent to make it more clearer it applies to Winters/ Spec ops and Operators if they have that ability.

Economy + Balance Adjustments

• Adjusted airstrike pricing and doctrine costs based on playtests lowered overall to make them more enjoyable

• Reduced Operator XP grind by ~34–40%

• GC36 + New Operator Skin added under Allen Walker called "Onslaught"

• Greatly reduced weapon XP requirements per level for Operators

• Custom game starting money increased up to 4 million

• Added the ability to set Starting Doctrine points for those that just want to bypass progression in a more casual game

• Half Moon Bay (Stray Ember was rebalanced based on weeks of communicating with the community to address turret limits, guard tower limits and power issues). Making it a lot more forgiving in your sessions!

Weapons + Combat Updates

• M203 grenade launcher ability added to Assault and as a new perk for the Operator

  • Assault can only get it from the Doctrine unlock

• Spec ops throw demo charge added to Operators as a new ability

• Demo Charge strengthened and retuned

• Infantry explosives buffed vs Juggernaut

• Vehicle cannon turn speed and pop cost balance pass (Bradley, Abrams, Cerberus)

• Turrets lights now properly rotate when they "Look around" at night

Visual + Audio Updates

• Updated loading screens from contest submissions

• Fixed nights being too dark, added Moonlight lighting support

• Medium GI now uses Screenspace GI, Low disables GI entirely

• Fixed weapon flashlight attachment pivots and turret visual desync issues

Camo + Cosmetic Systems

• Vehicle camo system implemented with replication support

• Recruit Popup + Weapon Market camo selector initial pass

• Added "signs" from legacy (Online support too!)

• Support Pack camo unlocks are now back in the rebuild! supports online play too!

Quality of Life + Restrictions

• Fixed exploit bypassing Doctrine restrictions via upgrade buttons

• Added sky validation to block invalid building placement where you could build production structures over say a bridge and units would not land correctly

• Added preset landing points to the Motor pool, barracks and main tent to resolve long standing issues with units landing in stupid spots

• Ammo boxes no longer grant unintended LOS

• Ammo crates no longer explode when destroyed

• M / P and other "live" keys no longer trigger the action associated\\ with them when you are focusing a type box.

Calypso is under going a revamp and is removed from the rotation for the next week

• To improve vehicle pathing for ground vehicles and airborne.

• Resolve some rough patches for bad collision where units would get stuck.

• We had this map in rotation around early January and we decided to pull it alongside improving pathing for Stray and Blacktide so we could rework parts of the map.

Very still W.I.P we expect to readd this map sometime next week!

Screenshot contest on Discord!

We are doing a screenshot contest for updating our loading screens submit your art here-> Rebuild only!

Cepheus Protocol Dev Report

Friday, January 30

Alright everyone, quick report on where we are today.

This is not a short update.

This is a full development report.

The rebuild reset the board.

Doctrines are the start of the real long-term game.

This post is meant to clearly document:

• What is now released

• Why it exists

• What problems it is solving

• What is still being tuned

• What we need from players this weekend

• What options are coming so people can shape the game to how they want to play

This is the foundation going into February.

Doctrines Are Now Live

As of today:

Doctrines are released.

This is the new progression system for Cepheus Protocol going forward.

In Legacy builds, we effectively gave players top-end tools too early:

• Abrams

• Bradley

• MLRS

• Apache

• Endgame weapons within minutes

There was no real ladder.

No structured tempo.

No meaningful progression loop.

That is now fundamentally changing.

Doctrines are the backbone for:

• Unlocks

• Economy scaling

• Long-term pacing

• Team progression

• Strategic identity over hours of play

The rebuild was the restart.

Doctrines are the actual game structure being rebuilt on top of it.

Why We Built This System

The goal is simple:

We want Cepheus Protocol to feel like you and your friends are building toward something together over time.

Not rushing the entire tech tree in the first 10 minutes.

Not having every weapon available instantly.

Not having progression be meaningless.

Doctrines exist so the game has:

• Early game pressure

• Midgame growth

• Late game payoff

• Real strategic choices

• A shared campaign-like loop in co-op

This is how the game becomes sustainable long-term.

Shared Doctrine Progression (Team-Based)

Doctrine Points are shared across the match.

This is not individual grinding.

All players contribute toward the same tree.

That means:

• Your team progresses together

• Your upgrades are part of a shared strategic plan

• Co-op sessions feel like collective effort, not disconnected builds

Three-Stage Doctrine Structure

The Doctrine tree is split into three stages:

Stage 1 → Stage 2 → Stage 3

Important design rules:

• There is no prerequisite besides paying into the next stage

• You can take upgrades from any stage

• Some upgrades chain forward across stages

Example:

• XP upgrades scale from Stage 1 into Stage 2 into Stage 3

• Ammo reserve upgrades begin early and reach full power late

• Gas efficiency follows the same progression

The intent is stacked modifiers and long-term strategy.

Not instant power spikes.

What’s In Doctrines Right Now

The current tree contains roughly two to three dozen items, including:

Economy and Efficiency Passives

• Increased ammo reserves

• Increased XP gained from kills

• Reduced structure costs by category

Ammo Reserves by Unit Type

Upgrades are split by:

• Infantry

• Vehicles

• Helicopters

Gas Efficiency Scaling

Doctrines improve how much gas units can hold by type.

This directly supports longer operations and late-game pacing.

Unlocks and Progression

Doctrines now govern unlock structure for:

• Weapons

• Abilities

• Classes

• Airstrikes

This is the system that finally allows progression tempo to exist in Rebuild.

You should not be rushing Abrams, Bradley, MLRS, or other endgame tools immediately anymore.

New Structure: Logistics Requisition Center

We are introducing a major infrastructure component:

Logistics Requisition Center

Built by Engineers.

Purpose:

• Passive Doctrine XP generation through infrastructure

• Helps maintain Stage 2 to Stage 3 pacing

• Provides an alternative to purely kill-based progression

Key details:

• High energy cost

• High upfront money cost

• Up to 10 globally

This is designed to reward strategic buildup, not just frontline farming.

UI Status

Doctrines are live.

The UI is being finalized right now.

Target window:

• Monday to Tuesday

Some placeholder icons may still exist briefly while final assets are swapped in over the next couple of days.

Balance Status: This Weekend Is Data Collection

Let me be extremely clear:

We are not pretending balance is “done.”

Doctrines are a foundational restructure.

Now we tune.

A lot of major balance pressure points have already been progressed significantly, but we need more real match data.

We need to know:

• What feels off

• What feels too easy

• What feels too punishing

• What feels unfair

• What upgrades feel mandatory

• What pacing feels too fast or too slow

This weekend is where we gather that data in real sessions.

This is how the system becomes solid.

Custom Game Options Expansion (Player-Controlled Difficulty)

One of the biggest goals going forward is flexibility.

Not everyone wants the same experience.

Some players want a sweaty hardcore strategy grind.

Some players want a casual pandemic sim where they mess around for hours.

We want to support both.

Custom game options are going to expand heavily before Civilian Evacuation.

Examples of what we are working toward:

• Starting with all Doctrine Points

• Increasing or decreasing Doctrine XP gain rate

• Turning Supply systems on or off

• Turning Gas mechanics on or off

The goal is that players can shape the experience:

Hardcore tactical progression, or relaxed sandbox apocalypse.

Both are valid.

We want Cepheus Protocol to accommodate the full range.

Save System Update (How It Will Work)

We started active Save System work on Wednesday and we’ll have more to show early next week. Full details will keep getting posted as we progress.

How saves work in most games

In a typical game, a save is tied to one mode of play:

• You save your session

• You load it later

• It usually stays single-player, or it becomes a completely separate “multiplayer server save” system

What we’re building for Cepheus Protocol

Our goal is to let you treat a session like a real campaign that can move between offline and online play.

The intended flow is:

• Start a session offline if you want

• Save it whenever you want

• Later, you can take that same save and host it online so friends can join and continue the same world

This is built specifically for co-op groups who cannot always start and finish a long session in one sitting.

What this enables long-term

• Pandemic co-op sessions you can pause and resume across multiple days or just by yourself if you want

• Start a run solo, then bring friends in later without restarting

• A clearer structure for future systems like Civilian Evac and long-form progression

What We Need From You This Weekend

Please play Doctrines in real sessions.

Test:

• Progression pacing

• Shared Doctrine Points feel

• Stage advancement timing

• Upgrade relevance

• Difficulty curve

• Network performance under match load

• Any bugs, desyncs, or edge cases

And tell us directly:

What do you love?

What do you hate?

What feels wrong?

What feels right?

This feedback is massive right now because this is the foundation the entire game scales around going into February.

Forward Timeline

This Weekend

• Doctrine release testing

• Balance feedback collection

• Data gathering

Monday to Tuesday

• Doctrine UI finalized

• Placeholder elements replaced

Tuesday to Wednesday

• Save system rollout

Following Weeks

• Bug fixing

• Quality of life

• Operator polish

• Civilian Evac groundwork

Mid February:

• Livestream covering Civilian Evacuation direction and next-stage expansion

Final Note

The rebuild reset the board.

Doctrines are the real progression game now.

This is the long-term structure:

• Shared progression

• Structured unlocks

• Strategic scaling

• Player-controlled customization

• Persistent co-op sessions through saves

Thank you again for the overwhelming support lately.

Together, we are building something truly remarkable in Cepheus Protocol

Alright everyone, quick report based off Friday in terms of what’s going on.

We’re releasing an early preview of some of the Doctrine changes on Experimental going into this weekend, and I highly recommend people jump in and try it out.

This is an early drop to let you guys test the mechanics early, find issues, and help us validate performance before the UI goes live.

Screenshot contest on Discord!

We are doing a screenshot contest for updating our loading screens submit your art here-> Rebuild only!

🔥 What’s Included in This Experimental Preview

This build adds:

Engineer

• Turret pets are back and better then ever! (the little deployable turrets from legacy)

  • Can only be built by Engineers and self destruct when their ammo hits 0.

• Deposable and meant for a quick "shore" up while backup is on the way.

Radio Man Expansion / Airstrike System

Communications Tower lets you call in airstrikes remotely through your Radio Operator or Command Truck. Operators will gain access to this in the next few days via a new perk.

Relay Nodes are buildable field extenders made only by the Radioman, designed to be placed in forward positions to expand your strike network.

Airstrikes are now directly tied to your airstrike logistics units:

• Radio Operator is built from the Barracks

• Command Truck is built from the Motor Pool

These units are your logistics managers for strikes. They can call in airstrikes anywhere you have Influence, which is defined as the AOE coverage from your base network and any extenders you have deployed. Their call in range is more limited while they are moving.

To expand coverage into the field, you can place Relay Nodes as small, hideable forward structures. On top of that, you can build a Radar Tower at your base to enable remote support and airstrikes through your Radio Operators and Command Trucks. The goal is a connected, expanding network that behaves like mobile coverage, pushing your airstrike reach forward as you take ground.

• Thunderbolt Bombing + Gun run is in

• MOAB Bomb is in

• White phosphorus airstrike is in

• AC130 Dragon Gunship is in!

• Direct Strike is in

• Ammo Box drop & Large Ammo Box drop is in

• Gas airstrike coming Sunday / Monday

• Effective range you can call in airstrikes are reduced by half when moving!

Assault

• M203 ability

Spec Ops

• Demo Charge (throwable, very direct AoE blast)

Vehicles

• Bradley TOW

In Depth Patch Notes

Pandemic Economy + Resupply Balance

• Increased starting cash from 30k to 50k for Pandemic

• Adjusted cost of vehicle weapons

• Stray Ember is disabled for a week while we address really bad pathing issues in that map

• MLRS now costs 350 less to resupply

• Cerberus, Abrams, TOWs, and Mortars are 20% more expensive to resupply to account for recent buffs

• Increased money-on-kill for:

  • Police Infected

  • SWAT

  • Military Officer

  • Blowup Guy

FX + Visual Updates

• Updated MOAB FX

• Removed Christmas lights from Gas Tower

• Updated Gate preview meshes and UI icons

• Fixed various incorrect UI icons

• Added placeholder airstrike icons from legacy

• Added UI icons for Dragon Gunship weapons

• Updated Gunship AOE visualization

• Fixed Airstrikes visual stacking bug

• Fixed an issue where Airstrike visibility was getting culled only in gameplay maps

Resupply System Improvements

• Fixed Resupply logic that would block high cost weapons/bullets and only supply primary weapons

• Motor Pool now supplies helicopters fully

• Added bSupplyTooLow to ResupplyComponent to allow resupply attempts even when Supply has not hit zero, if a resupply attempt failed due to being too expensive (example: MLRS)

• Minor cleanup to supply math

Armory + Map Containment Fixes

• Made amendments to the Armoury so users could not jump out like people in abandoned parkour videos on YouTube

• Ammo box readded to Hub with new mesh

Gates + Fortifications

• Crash fix: gates being destroyed while closing could cause a crash

• Fixed infantry gate offset

• Adjusted razor wire collision

UI + Gameplay Presentation

• Added it so screen messages are hidden by default

• Fixed various incorrect UI icons

• Minor UI fixes

• Fix for Custom Unit Settings not saving latest changes if you hit Return to Game while customizing an enemy

Debug Cleanup

• Wrapped FormationActor debug sphere call behind a debug bool (should stop magenta spheres for helicopter stuff)

• Locked HelicopterMovement landing debug sphere behind a debug bool so it will not show up in regular gameplay

Vehicle Weapon + Damage Pass

• Fixed Abrams CROWS metadata so it attaches properly to the main cannon instead of the root body

• Improved damage for:

  • Abrams cannon

  • MLRS cannon/mortar

  • Cerberus cannon/mortar

• AJAX TOW damage increased to outpace the SMAW

• Increased smoothbore damage slightly

• Sabot round balance pass:

  • Reduced damage from 20k to 3k

• Increased sniper damages

• Increased vehicle ranges

• Increased Abrams cannon damage against Juggs slightly

• Increased sabot damage

• Cut back some damage to infected structures using the MLRS

• Fixed brute sliding

Targeting + AI Prep Work

• Standardized some Find Target code in prep for Derek finalizing targeting issues sometimes with Horde objectives(Fixes Melee failing for Horde objectives)

• Fix for garrisoned units in Guard Towers failing to rotate to certain angles to shoot targets

Call In System + Airstrikes Revamp

• Revamped loading for Call In system

• Damage and radius pass on call in airstrikes

• Mule radius decreased to 750 from 1000

• Ammo crate call in prices adjusted and supply amounts adjusted

• MOAB balance changes with added DT

• Added Ammo and Large Ammo crate supply call ins

• Fixed support callins not working on clients

• Added vehicle support to airstrike extension

• Fixed crash: CepheusProtocol!AStrikeInstance::BeginFireBurst() StrikeInstance.cpp:375

Radioman + Radio Network Expansion

• Added ability for the Radioman to build the Radio Relay

• Added support for only allowing strikes around his radius or the structures radius

• Added Radio Tower and further polish to the shops for:

  • Radio Truck

  • Radio Operator

• Added Radio Truck as buildable under the Light category

Turret + Rotation Overhaul (Initial Pass)

• Initial commit on turret update: “wait to face target before shooting”

• AI and turret rotation updated to use an internal value in the Weapon instead of relying on the Turret Anim Instance as the authority (except coaxials)

• Coaxial guns given zero rotation speed so they rely on parent weapon rotation

• Turret rotation speed/limits moved into Weapon_Base instead of deprecated values in Turret Anim Instance

• Added initial turret customization and angle-of-fire customization for vehicles to improve turret behavior and visuals

Doctrine XP + Progression Fixes

• Setup initial XP gains from killing infected types and structures

• Fixed a bug where airstrikes would not grant Doctrine XP

• Doctrine XP markers are no longer created in cinematic mode

• Fixed bug report: Engineers getting distracted by repair tasks

Engineer Repair Mode + Operator Support

• Initial pass on EngineerRepairMode ability (functions, needs move target update)

• Abilities now support AdditionalAbilitiesForOperator, allowing abilities to define extra abilities Operators receive if they pick up that ability from customization

  • Used to give Vehicle Repair to Operators who have Engineer Construction lv1

• More tweaks to Engineer Repair Mode to make it easier to use in Operator mode

• Improved Operator mode “cursor over unit shows healthbar” logic to be more reliable

• Additional fixes to healthbar visibility checks

Engineer built pet Sentries + Ammo Behavior

• Fixed M2 and Mk19 sentry so they work in gameplay setup UI icons

• Added support so weapons can destroy themselves when they run out of ammo

Abilities + Combat Features

• Added Demo Charge ability to Spec Ops

• Added support for grenades to have a time display

• Added widget replication support as needed

• Added Tilt support to ADS

• Added backblast Niagara effect support to the AimedAbility bullet ability payload setup

Helicopter Movement Fixes

• Logic fix for helicopter movement “not flying high enough before flying forward”

  • Should resolve most or all remaining cases of flying forward too early when something is in the way

Weapon Unlock System (Initial Pass)

• Initial pass on Weapon Unlock system for the FactionManager

• Recruit Popup updated to read this info

  • Replicates properly so clients see options in Recruit Popup

Spitter Behavior Adjustment

• Spitter change:

  • Minimum spit range is now 3000uu

  • Max spit range is 4250uu

  • Should force them to come in closer before spitting

Operator XP Weekend Event Time Fix

• Removed TimeAPI checks for operator XP weekend events due to unreliability

• Switched to newer Steam API for getting UTC time from Valve

• Will need a better solution for EOS

Audio

• Added missing VO barks to all vehicles

🧪 Why This Is On Experimental First

We also added some XP gains tied to the Doctrine system.

We put it in as an early incubator because right now we’re watching to see how expensive it is to run that on the network.

So this is more of a test on Experimental.

Important note: Right now, you can’t do anything with Doctrine points yet.

The entire goal this weekend is to run some sessions and see what the actual network cost looks like in real gameplay scenarios as we are spawning them!

🖥️ Doctrines UI Timing

Going into Monday / Tuesday, we’ll get you guys the UI for Doctrines.

We’re aiming for Tuesday as the target. If we get lucky, it might be sooner, but that’s roughly what we’re aiming for.

📌 What’s In the Doctrine System (2 to 3 Dozen Items)

There’s about two to three dozen items in the Doctrines page, including:

Passives / Economy / Efficiency

• Increasing ammo reserves

• Increasing XP gained from kills

• Decreasing structure cost by type

Ammo Reserves By Unit Type

Ammo reserve increases are based off type:

• Infantry

• Vehicles

• Helicopters

Gas Efficiency

Improving the efficiency of gas, or rather, how much gas units can hold by type.

Unlocks and Progression

• Unlocking weapons

• Unlocking abilities

• Unlocking classes

• Unlocking airstrikes

The idea is that everything is being wrapped up in this system, and the entire game is being rebalanced and reorganized around this Doctrine tree.

So you can’t just rush to the Abrams or the Bradley or the MLRS or the striker mortar in the first 5 to 10 minutes of the game.

🏗️ New Structure: Logistics Requisition Center (Passive Doctrine XP)

We’re adding a structure into the game Logistics Requisition Center.

The idea is that this structure built from the Engineer allows you to farm XP passively for doctrines.

So not only can you get doctrine points by going out and killing, but you can also invest in these structures and build doctrine XP through infrastructure.

Key details:

• Costs a lot of energy

• Costs a lot of money to build initially

• You can build up to 10 globally

You’ll get a bigger picture on how everything works and how it operates going into Tuesday when we drop the UI.

❤️ Community Update (Seriously, Thank You)

It’s been great seeing thousands of people flood into Cepheus Protocol over the last week or so since we merged Rebuild.

We’ve seen a huge outpouring of love, caring, and trust in what we’re doing, and we genuinely appreciate all the people willing to contribute their time to:

• Find bugs

• Find issues

• Help us fix the game in different ways

It’s been completely overwhelming in the best way.

We’ve had to make hard decisions over the last year to prioritize long-term gains over short-term, and it’s been incredible seeing you guys understand the vision and support it.

🚁 Pathfinding Progress (Rebuild Results)

With the rebuild foundation in place:

• Vehicle pathfinding is better

• Helicopter pathfinding is better

• And we’ve pushed it even further on Experimental

I’m not saying it’s bugless. I’m not saying it’s perfect.

There are still:

• Issues to hunt down

• Performance issues to improve

• AI bugs to resolve

But we’re getting there day by day, minute by minute, working in collaboration with the community.

Our devs are actively engaging with you guys on Steam forums and Discord to address tension points and concerns directly.

🎯 What We Want You To Do This Weekend

Jump into Experimental this weekend and try everything.

Please test:

• Airstrikes

• Radio Operators

• Radio Trucks

• Radio Command Trucks

• Relay setups in the field

• Combat pacing with the new additions

And tell us what you think:

• How does it feel?

• How do things play?

• Do you have suggestions for doctrine passives or upgrades we should look into long-term?

What we have right now is pretty much baked in, but feedback is still massive for tuning and future direction.

📈 Progression Philosophy (What’s Changing)

I mentioned last week the rebuild was basically the restart, centering the field, resetting the board.

This upcoming week is taking everything you know about the game and throwing it out the window in terms of:

• Progression loop

• Game balance

• Shared progression and long-term scaling

We want the player experience to feel like you and your friends are contributing toward a common goal.

Doctrine Points are shared

Doctrine points are shared amongst all players in the match.

Three-stage doctrine progression

At any time, you can jump to the next stage.

There’s no prerequisite to go to Stage 2 or Stage 3 besides paying and going linearly from:

• Stage 1 → Stage 2 → Stage 3

You can take upgrades from any stage, but some upgrades are chained.

Examples:

• XP rates in Stage 1 → chained into Stage 2 → chained into Stage 3

• Ammo upgrades and gas efficiency upgrades can start in Stage 1 and reach full potential in Stage 3

The goal is small stacked modifiers that let you upgrade with intentionality, and build your forces in a way that feels strategic over hours of play.

🔓 Weapon/Class Unlock Restructure

There are some new weapons, abilities, and classes being added.

But there are also weapons that were basically free for everyone already that should have been locked previously.

We intentionally had them unlocked in previous builds so you could:

• Play them

• Experience them

• See how they felt

Now that we have doctrines inside the rebuild, we can reset the tempo and properly structure progression again.

Now we can answer: What do you actually have to work toward to get an Abrams, an MRS, a Bradley, etc.

⚙️ Custom Game Options (Coming Next Week)

We’ll still add custom game options so people can customize the experience or cheese progression if they want to.

We’re aiming to add a couple additional custom game options next week before we start the save system, to address pressure points like:

• “I want to start with all doctrine points”

• “I want to increase the rate I gain doctrine XP”

Simple options that we’ll expose alongside the Doctrine UI.

🗓️ Next Week Timeline (Current Target)

Here’s the current plan:

This Weekend

• Experimental doctrine preview testing

• Airstrikes, relay systems, new abilities, and network-cost testing for XP

Monday / Tuesday

• Doctrine UI goes live

• Full list of doctrine items revealed

Tuesday / Wednesday

• Start work on the save system

Goal: Next Friday

• Deliver a functional save system

After that:

• Last week of January is bugs, quality of life, and cleanup

• Operator polish

• Civilian Evac

If You’re Confused, Read These First (Pinned)

Haven’t Played in a While? Start Here

📢 Civilian Evacuation Livestream + Master FAQ Thread

We’re planning on doing a Saturday livestream to address and go over everything planned for Civilian Evacuation. (TBD)

I’m going to link a Steam thread that will act as a Master FAQ.

Please post on it and give us the full TLDR:

• What you loved about Civilian Evacuation

• What you hated

• What you want to see improved

I’ve got a lot of ideas, but I want to see what the community has to add too, so we can build this into something truly remarkable.

✅ Final Note

Thank you again for the insane amount of support lately.

It’s been overwhelming, and we’re going to keep hauling ass to meet our timeline and keep improving the game with you guys alongside us.

Together, we’re going to build a truly remarkable experience in Cepheus Protocol that is unparalleled.

The rebuild is now the default version of Cepheus Protocol, and the first 48 hours gave us exactly what we needed: a real stress test at scale.

Discord playtests help, internal testing helps, but nothing compares to thousands of players stress testing the game in every possible way. That’s how you find the edge cases you never see in controlled sessions.

The good news is we’ve already reproduced and fixed several of the biggest issues being reported, and we’re pushing those changes live right now.

What We Learned (First 48 Hours)

• The rebuild foundation is holding up well, but community play testing immediately exposed edge cases, mainly around vehicles, navigation, and some UI flow.

• A lot of confusion is still coming from missing systems (Civilian Evac, dynamic civilians, etc)

  See the FAQ below!

• UI overlapping issues were resolved

Patch Notes:

• Fixed an issue with the server browser where there were so many people playing the scroll bar stopped working for hosted servers

What We’re Still Hunting

These are the kinds of issues that don’t always appear during internal testing, but show up immediately once the community gets hands-on.

If you run into anything weird with:

• Vehicles doing something dumb

• Units ignoring obvious navigation

• UI menus acting strange

A short clip or a quick Discord screenshare helps us reproduce and eliminate it fast. Feel free to hop on discord and we can jump into a voice call. Anything helps! As we are seeking to knock out the remaining pathing issues pronto!

In Progress

We’re also actively working on several high-impact systems that affect moment-to-moment gameplay:

• Engineer repair behavior for vehicles

• Engineer Auto-repair for structures and vehicles

Next Big Goal: Doctrines + Airstrikes (Targeting Week of 11th)

We’re shifting back to the next major pillar of the rebuild.

Our goal is to get Doctrines back in and bring Airstrikes back with the full set of related systems and support options by next week.

That’s the next big step toward restoring long-term progression and replayability in the rebuild.

Balance Passes (Ongoing)

Balance is still being tuned every day as more players jump in and we get real data.

Michael is actively monitoring feedback and adjusting:

• Weapons

• Turrets

• Vehicles

This is an ongoing process and we will keep tightening it as the rebuild stabilizes.

If You’re Confused, Read These First (Pinned)

Haven’t Played in a While? Start Here

What Still Needs To Be Finished

Here is the consolidated list, in one place, so there is no confusion.

Missing Or In Progress Systems

• January Goals

  • Remaining Vehicle Abilities And Behaviors

    • Bradley TOW

  • Doctrines

  • Save System for Pandemic

  • BUGS, BUGS and Bugs! We still are hunting down desyncs and bugs as they are reported!

  • Game Balance - Is still ongoing and being tweaked. Michael is monitoring Steam/Discord for feedback

• February Goals

  • Any Remaining Bugs/Performance Tweaks/QOL Adjustments based on community feedback

  • Remaining Enemy Roster Needed For Angel to be unlocked

    • Leviathan

    • Birds

  • Additional Pandemic Regions Locked Until The Above Is Complete

    • Angel Island

    • San Francisco North

• TBD

  We are committed to not rushing to the "end" to ensure everything prior is working correctly. These are the ones currently in limbo that we will be tackling once the above list is "completely" done.

  • LHA6 & LCAC

• Civilian Evacuation & Dynamic Civilian Groups

  • We made two pinned threads so we can centralize answers and stop misinformation:

    • Rebuild vs Legacy: which version you’re on, what’s missing, what to play (link)

    • Civilian Evac 2.0 + Dynamic Civilians plan: why it’s delayed and what’s changing (link)

    If you’re asking: “where is evac” “where are civilians” “what build am I on” Start there.

That is the remaining gap we are closing through Q1. Anything else will be discussed only after the current list above is done.

Q1 2026 Target

Our target through Q1 2026 is to bring back the remaining missing pillars and have the rebuilt version fully represent the complete Cepheus Protocol experience again, but better.

That means:

• More stability and performance

• Larger scale gameplay

• More and better maps

• Complete Pandemic mode pillars

• Operators expanding toward Doctrines

Public Campaigns

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 Single player has become.

Our Last Dev Campaigns:

📖 Operation: Island Sweep – Treasure Island Playtest Recap

In one of our first large-scale playtests for Treasure Island, CERC forces deployed from the carrier deck and immediately split into two coordinated fireteams. One team moved quickly to secure the bridge linking Yerba Buena Island to the main landmass, establishing a forward barricade to stem any early infected movement. Meanwhile, the second team advanced on the military base, fortifying it as a staging area for deeper incursions into the city.

Operators were dispatched on foot for reconnaissance, sweeping through nearby districts to identify infected activity and relay positions back to RTS players. These early scouts faced brutal resistance—several near-wipeouts forced emergency retreats to fallback outposts, where teams regrouped before launching counteroffensives.

As intel solidified, CERC forces began a methodical push toward the carnival grounds, establishing forward operating bases (FOBs) block by block. Each zone cleared became a new resupply and logistics hub, allowing the team to maintain pressure and steadily expand their perimeter. The fighting intensified near the construction site and hospital district, where infected forces attempted multiple breakouts—but each was repelled by quick RTS responses and layered defenses.

Key tactical strikes were launched against newly emerged gas towers, which the infected had built to irradiate CERC positions and force retreats. These were neutralized in time, allowing squads to resume their advance. The operation culminated in a coordinated sweep through the hospital zone, ending with the elimination of Chelsey after a protracted urban engagement.

In a final act of desperation, the infected launched a last-ditch assault to retake the military base. It was shut down by a precision Blackhawk strafing run—securing victory and leaving only isolated remnants, which were tracked down and eliminated by roaming patrols and air support.

The rebuild is now the default version of Cepheus Protocol, and the first 48 hours gave us exactly what we needed: a real stress test at scale.

Discord playtests help, internal testing helps, but nothing compares to thousands of players stress testing the game in every possible way. That’s how you find the edge cases you never see in controlled sessions.

The good news is we’ve already reproduced and fixed several of the biggest issues being reported, and we’re pushing those changes live right now.

What We Learned (First 48 Hours)

• The rebuild foundation is holding up well, but community play testing immediately exposed edge cases, mainly around vehicles, navigation, and some UI flow.

• A lot of confusion is still coming from missing systems (Civilian Evac, dynamic civilians, etc)

  See the FAQ below!

• UI overlapping issues were resolved

Patch Notes:

• Increased Max Server Search to 200 limit(Might have to look into pages long term)

• Optimized some loading screen elements that were causing VRAM to balloon at times

• Fixed incorrect UI icon for m240b

• Some Level Geo/Textures were optimized that were causing VRAM to balloon at times

• Tweaked hydra damage higher so the Apache feels more "worth it"

• Abrams smoothbore/Cerberus 105 increased damage towards certain units

• Guard Towers & Turrets are limited per zone now instead of the global pool!

  • Set up server validation for clients setting down structures in a zone, to ensure 'build limits per zone' are respected even if a client does multiple structures at once during a lagspike

  • Set up CERC turrets to no longer have a global recruit limit of 12 (instead it's 6 per zone)

  • Build Limit per zone now respected by construction function: Guard Tower updated to 6 per zone instead of 6 total

  • Improvements to Structure 'build limit' registration to work when setting down a construction hologram, and to deregister as soon as the structure dies

• Fixed a flaw with formation position updating getting 'wrong direction' if update would take it past a particular path point (more egregious when starting up move orders for helicopter/ground vehicles only moves)

  • Fixes units sometimes stopping mid air when given a new formation move order

• Set up some formation logic for helicopter-only moves to 'start' the formation further ahead.

  • Result: Seems to fix 'helicopter stuttering' if you're issuing multiple move orders to a group of helicopters

• Some improvements to Command Widget shop handling for special case actions (like back button, resupply component, radio component, etc.) (should fix the Heavy Vehicle shop 'losing the back button')

• Made it so hub/main menu games display as "Hub" instead of Main_Menu. Other Pandemic maps were renamed on how they appear on the Main menu Server join page

• Increased brute speed

What We’re Still Hunting

These are the kinds of issues that don’t always appear during internal testing, but show up immediately once the community gets hands-on.

If you run into anything weird with:

• Vehicles doing something dumb

• Units ignoring obvious navigation

• UI menus acting strange

A short clip or a quick Discord screenshare helps us reproduce and eliminate it fast. Feel free to hop on discord and we can jump into a voice call. Anything helps! As we are seeking to knock out the remaining pathing issues pronto!

In Progress

We’re also actively working on several high-impact systems that affect moment-to-moment gameplay:

• Engineer repair behavior for vehicles

• Engineer Auto-repair for structures and vehicles

Next Big Goal: Doctrines + Airstrikes (Targeting Week of 11th)

We’re shifting back to the next major pillar of the rebuild.

Our goal is to get Doctrines back in and bring Airstrikes back with the full set of related systems and support options by next week.

That’s the next big step toward restoring long-term progression and replayability in the rebuild.

Balance Passes (Ongoing)

Balance is still being tuned every day as more players jump in and we get real data.

Michael is actively monitoring feedback and adjusting:

• Weapons

• Turrets

• Vehicles

This is an ongoing process and we will keep tightening it as the rebuild stabilizes.

If You’re Confused, Read These First (Pinned)

Haven’t Played in a While? Start Here

What Still Needs To Be Finished

Here is the consolidated list, in one place, so there is no confusion.

Missing Or In Progress Systems

• January Goals

  • Remaining Vehicle Abilities And Behaviors

    • Bradley TOW

  • Doctrines

  • Save System for Pandemic

  • BUGS, BUGS and Bugs! We still are hunting down desyncs and bugs as they are reported!

  • Game Balance - Is still ongoing and being tweaked. Michael is monitoring Steam/Discord for feedback

• February Goals

  • Any Remaining Bugs/Performance Tweaks/QOL Adjustments based on community feedback

  • Remaining Enemy Roster Needed For Angel to be unlocked

    • Leviathan

    • Birds

  • Additional Pandemic Regions Locked Until The Above Is Complete

    • Angel Island

    • San Francisco North

• TBD

  We are committed to not rushing to the "end" to ensure everything prior is working correctly. These are the ones currently in limbo that we will be tackling once the above list is "completely" done.

  • LHA6 & LCAC

• Civilian Evacuation & Dynamic Civilian Groups

  • We made two pinned threads so we can centralize answers and stop misinformation:

    • Rebuild vs Legacy: which version you’re on, what’s missing, what to play (link)

    • Civilian Evac 2.0 + Dynamic Civilians plan: why it’s delayed and what’s changing (link)

    If you’re asking: “where is evac” “where are civilians” “what build am I on” Start there.

That is the remaining gap we are closing through Q1. Anything else will be discussed only after the current list above is done.

Q1 2026 Target

Our target through Q1 2026 is to bring back the remaining missing pillars and have the rebuilt version fully represent the complete Cepheus Protocol experience again, but better.

That means:

• More stability and performance

• Larger scale gameplay

• More and better maps

• Complete Pandemic mode pillars

• Operators expanding toward Doctrines

Public Campaigns

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 Single player has become.

Our Last Dev Campaigns:

📖 Operation: Island Sweep – Treasure Island Playtest Recap

In one of our first large-scale playtests for Treasure Island, CERC forces deployed from the carrier deck and immediately split into two coordinated fireteams. One team moved quickly to secure the bridge linking Yerba Buena Island to the main landmass, establishing a forward barricade to stem any early infected movement. Meanwhile, the second team advanced on the military base, fortifying it as a staging area for deeper incursions into the city.

Operators were dispatched on foot for reconnaissance, sweeping through nearby districts to identify infected activity and relay positions back to RTS players. These early scouts faced brutal resistance—several near-wipeouts forced emergency retreats to fallback outposts, where teams regrouped before launching counteroffensives.

As intel solidified, CERC forces began a methodical push toward the carnival grounds, establishing forward operating bases (FOBs) block by block. Each zone cleared became a new resupply and logistics hub, allowing the team to maintain pressure and steadily expand their perimeter. The fighting intensified near the construction site and hospital district, where infected forces attempted multiple breakouts—but each was repelled by quick RTS responses and layered defenses.

Key tactical strikes were launched against newly emerged gas towers, which the infected had built to irradiate CERC positions and force retreats. These were neutralized in time, allowing squads to resume their advance. The operation culminated in a coordinated sweep through the hospital zone, ending with the elimination of Chelsey after a protracted urban engagement.

In a final act of desperation, the infected launched a last-ditch assault to retake the military base. It was shut down by a precision Blackhawk strafing run—securing victory and leaving only isolated remnants, which were tracked down and eliminated by roaming patrols and air support.

The rebuild is now the default version of Cepheus Protocol, and the first 48 hours gave us exactly what we needed: a real stress test at scale.

Discord playtests help, internal testing helps, but nothing compares to thousands of players stress testing the game in every possible way. That’s how you find the edge cases you never see in controlled sessions.

The good news is we’ve already reproduced and fixed several of the biggest issues being reported, and we’re pushing those changes live right now.

What We Learned (First 48 Hours)

• The rebuild foundation is holding up well, but community play testing immediately exposed edge cases, mainly around vehicles, navigation, and some UI flow.

• A lot of confusion is still coming from missing systems (Civilian Evac, dynamic civilians, etc)

  See the FAQ below!

• UI overlapping issues were resolved

Hotfix Live Now (Vehicle + Gate Fixes)

This post is going live at the same time as the latest fixes.

Two issues were big enough that we wanted them fixed immediately.

What’s Fixed in This Update

• Vehicle structure detection and ramming edge cases

  • We found scenarios where vehicles could mis-detect or fail to detect player structures depending on the situation.

  • Result: vehicles could repeatedly crash into jersey barriers, walls, and certain player structures/landscape actors instead of treating them as solid obstacles.

  • This has been corrected so vehicles properly respect those structures and stop “brute forcing” into them.

• Gate navigation update bug

  • We reproduced a bug reported on Discord involving gates not updating navigation correctly.

  • If a gate was set to Auto, then swapped to Manual mode while opened and then closed, there were cases where the nav state would not refresh. Till you toggled that gate back to Auto and let a unit walk past it to "reset" the state

  • Result: units would still attempt to path through a gate that was visibly closed.

  • This is now fixed and gates properly update navigation when their state changes.

• Fixed Vehicle Turrets when fired to "empty" would fail to properly work after resupplied

• World Buildings (the preplaced structures) Nav Weight would confuse CERC into thinking they could squeeze through them making Path finding freak out. Like say you built a CERC wall and built it into a structure/building. Units would incorrectly still try to path find along the edges of that structure. Context

• Various Texture Optimizations across the project to further optimization Streaming / Out of memory warnings(Still ongoing!)

• Resolved a discord reported crash

• Fixed some assets in HMB (Half Moon) that weren't rag dolling when hit with a vehicle

• Fixed Shawnee not rolling on turns properly.

• Improvements to helicopter height-check handling to more reliably go up when helicopters otherwise would get stuck

• Fixes to BaseGarrisonComponent to resolve fast roping units failing to actually 'remove' themselves from their seats (which cause issues on the helicopter after first fast rope success)

• Speculative improvements to stuck detection for chaos vehicles

• Adjustments to helicopter-only formation movement to reduce chances of 'stuttering' from Formation Actor not moving far enough ahead

• Locked off the VisionGrid DeferredVisionUpdateTimedOut debug behind a cvar (VisionGrid.DeferredTimeoutDebug). Stops the draw debug text from appearing while play

• Fixed a Turret issue that would only occur for Vehicles where they would fail to initialize their eyes properly making it so low level objects could block their ability to shoot.

• Superheavy treaded vehicles tuned to have better steering and performance, including custom steering curve(Abrams, Atlas, MLRS & Bradley)

• Updated PauseMenu to properly treat the level selection subwidgets (for both Pandemic+Horde maps) as part of the Base_PlayerController's menustack, so ESC while in one of these menus will properly go back

• Fixed some collision logic issues relating to Gates not being responsive at certain angles/distances for their auto open feature

• Fixed a case where Exploding rounds would sometimes incorrectly damage the unit that fired them https://discord.com/channels/469412014427602944/1458836944325709914/1458836944325709914

• Minor fix for Mortar smoke trail.

• Merlin can air drop and pickup vehicles again! The Abrams, Bradley and MLRS are restricted because of their weight

• Updated Localizations for all languages

• Fixed a call in Move To task that bypassed construction safeties for Engineers which resulted in them doing some stupid move orders in certain cases.

• Lowered Mule resupply limit to 3k

• Fixed night time being inconsistent on lower GlobalIlluminationQuality settings. Will be Dark at all times now across settings

• MLRS, Cerberus Motor, Tow, SMAW, MGL friendly fire now.

• Fixed Some physics reliably issues for Juggernauts and Vehicles for ramming

• Fixed Large Helipad not resupplying

• Juggernauts not moving bug fixed

• Fixed a typo on main menu

• Fixed a bug where after a CERC structure was destroyed units would sometimes fail to see units on the other side because of an aggressive optimization check

• Added Logistics cost for resupplying weapons in the game

• Added "Supply" to the game. Which means everything that uses ammo/gas costs to resupply at the Motor Pool, Helipad, Ammo Tents etc. Its not just can i buy X unit its also can i afford to resupply X unit. As units like the MLRS and other super units cost a lot to resupply.

What We’re Still Hunting

These are the kinds of issues that don’t always appear during internal testing, but show up immediately once the community gets hands-on.

If you run into anything weird with:

• Vehicles doing something dumb

• Units ignoring obvious navigation

• UI menus acting strange

A short clip or a quick Discord screenshare helps us reproduce and eliminate it fast. Feel free to hop on discord and we can jump into a voice call. Anything helps! As we are seeking to knock out the remaining pathing issues pronto!

New Feature Added Tonight

• Chinook transport is now in

  • The Chinook can now ferry Light-Medium Vehicles.

Tonight’s Work (In Progress)

We’re also actively working on several high-impact systems that affect moment-to-moment gameplay:

• Engineer repair behavior for vehicles

• Engineer Auto-repair for structures and vehicles

• Per zone Guard towers & Turrets restrictions instead of the global pool

Next Big Goal: Doctrines + Airstrikes (Targeting Next Week)

We’re shifting back to the next major pillar of the rebuild.

Our goal is to get Doctrines back in and bring Airstrikes back with the full set of related systems and support options by next week.

That’s the next big step toward restoring long-term progression and replayability in the rebuild.

Balance Passes (Ongoing)

Balance is still being tuned every day as more players jump in and we get real data.

Michael is actively monitoring feedback and adjusting:

• Weapons

• Turrets

• Vehicles

This is an ongoing process and we will keep tightening it as the rebuild stabilizes.

If You’re Confused, Read These First (Pinned)

Haven’t Played in a While? Start Here

What Still Needs To Be Finished

Here is the consolidated list, in one place, so there is no confusion.

Missing Or In Progress Systems

• January Goals

  • Remaining Vehicle Abilities And Behaviors

    • Bradley TOW

  • Doctrines

  • Save System for Pandemic

  • BUGS, BUGS and Bugs! We still are hunting down desyncs and bugs as they are reported!

  • Game Balance - Is still ongoing and being tweaked. Michael is monitoring Steam/Discord for feedback

• February Goals

  • Any Remaining Bugs/Performance Tweaks/QOL Adjustments based on community feedback

  • Remaining Enemy Roster Needed For Angel to be unlocked

    • Leviathan

    • Birds

  • Additional Pandemic Regions Locked Until The Above Is Complete

    • Angel Island

    • San Francisco North

• TBD

  We are committed to not rushing to the "end" to ensure everything prior is working correctly. These are the ones currently in limbo that we will be tackling once the above list is "completely" done.

  • LHA6 & LCAC

• Civilian Evacuation & Dynamic Civilian Groups

  • We made two pinned threads so we can centralize answers and stop misinformation:

    • Rebuild vs Legacy: which version you’re on, what’s missing, what to play (link)

    • Civilian Evac 2.0 + Dynamic Civilians plan: why it’s delayed and what’s changing (link)

    If you’re asking: “where is evac” “where are civilians” “what build am I on” Start there.

That is the remaining gap we are closing through Q1. Anything else will be discussed only after the current list above is done.

Q1 2026 Target

Our target through Q1 2026 is to bring back the remaining missing pillars and have the rebuilt version fully represent the complete Cepheus Protocol experience again, but better.

That means:

• More stability and performance

• Larger scale gameplay

• More and better maps

• Complete Pandemic mode pillars

• Operators expanding toward Doctrines

Public Campaigns

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 Single player has become.

Our Last Dev Campaigns:

📖 Operation: Island Sweep – Treasure Island Playtest Recap

In one of our first large-scale playtests for Treasure Island, CERC forces deployed from the carrier deck and immediately split into two coordinated fireteams. One team moved quickly to secure the bridge linking Yerba Buena Island to the main landmass, establishing a forward barricade to stem any early infected movement. Meanwhile, the second team advanced on the military base, fortifying it as a staging area for deeper incursions into the city.

Operators were dispatched on foot for reconnaissance, sweeping through nearby districts to identify infected activity and relay positions back to RTS players. These early scouts faced brutal resistance—several near-wipeouts forced emergency retreats to fallback outposts, where teams regrouped before launching counteroffensives.

As intel solidified, CERC forces began a methodical push toward the carnival grounds, establishing forward operating bases (FOBs) block by block. Each zone cleared became a new resupply and logistics hub, allowing the team to maintain pressure and steadily expand their perimeter. The fighting intensified near the construction site and hospital district, where infected forces attempted multiple breakouts—but each was repelled by quick RTS responses and layered defenses.

Key tactical strikes were launched against newly emerged gas towers, which the infected had built to irradiate CERC positions and force retreats. These were neutralized in time, allowing squads to resume their advance. The operation culminated in a coordinated sweep through the hospital zone, ending with the elimination of Chelsey after a protracted urban engagement.

In a final act of desperation, the infected launched a last-ditch assault to retake the military base. It was shut down by a precision Blackhawk strafing run—securing victory and leaving only isolated remnants, which were tracked down and eliminated by roaming patrols and air support.

TLDR

• The Rebuild is now the standard installed version of Cepheus Protocol.

• The old version is now called Legacy, and it remains available as a Beta option.

• This rebuild was done to restore stability, improve performance, and modernize the foundation so the game can scale again.

• That same foundation also allows co-op to exist from the start, instead of being bolted on later.

• We are targeting end of Q1 2026 to bring back the remaining missing pillars, rebuilt and improved.

Which Build Should You Play?

• Default (Standard Install) This is now the rebuilt version of Cepheus Protocol and the main version we maintain going forward. Play this for the current supported game, best performance, and all new updates.

• Experimental (Beta Branch) This is the testing branch ahead of Default, where upcoming features land first. Expect bugs, frequent updates, and possible save issues. Opt-in only if you want to help test new changes early.

• Legacy (Original) (Beta Branch) This is the preserved prebuild version for older saves and the original gameplay foundation. Opt into this if you want to continue old saves or stay on the classic build. This branch will not receive future updates. You can see the "foundation" that we based the rebuild on for the newly merged into "default" here.

• Legacy (Pre Merge) (Beta Branch) This is the last version from before the rebuild became Default. If you were playing the rebuild while it was still a Beta branch.

The Big Change

Going forward, when you install Cepheus Protocol, you are installing the rebuilt version.

For most of the last year, the rebuilt version existed as an opt in Beta branch while we validated the foundation in public tests. A lot of players never saw that Beta branch, which caused real confusion about what version was being worked on and why certain things felt inconsistent.

So we are ending that confusion. The game is alive as ever and is still passionately worked on a daily basis by our team. We have been biding our time developing the rebuild on public/private betas slowly ticking away at the core mechanics missed from the rebuild readding them as we go. We now feel the current state of the game is enough to flip the builds.

Going into next week we will be shipping Doctrines and start the save system. We expect to have an early doctrines to show by Friday and have it in UI wise by mid next week. We will update as we progress here and on our discord.

A quick Catch up!

A few notable changes recently:

• Infected Military, Police and Swat will now roam the island with higher stats then standard infected. They start showing up early and increase in numbers as the days go on!

• Infantry Gates

New Infected Variants replace legacy models

• 16 Player Coop RTS/TPS hybrid gameplay!

• Firing Computer from the MLRS ported to the Cerberus Mortar with the rebuild

Legacy Version

Legacy remains available as a preserved snapshot of the pre rebuild version.

If you want to keep playing that older snapshot, or if you want to keep older saves, you can do that through Steam Betas.

What This Rebuild Actually Was

This was not a content patch. It was a full foundation revamp.

We rebuilt the core systems so the game can scale properly again, run better, and stop breaking under the weight of legacy technical debt. That benefits everything:

• Single player flow and stability

• AI behavior and consistency

• Vehicle systems and reliability

• Large scale performance

• Future content velocity

• Co-op support as a first class feature

Co-op is not the point of the rebuild. Co-op is one of the benefits of doing the rebuild correctly.

What You Can Play Right Now

Horde Mode

We currently have two Horde experiences built in the rebuilt framework:

• Half Moon Bay (Horde Rush)

  • Forward progression style Horde

  • Push the map and keep momentum instead of only holding ground

• RTS Coop Test (Horde)

  • Traditional horde map experience

Operators (Foundation Now, Expansion Later)

Operators were built in lockstep with the rebuilt foundation, not as a disconnected system.

Current Operator baseline includes:

• Weapon customization (early version)

• Attribute points

• Appearance baseline

• Gunsmith/Operator UI is not final and will be improvement over the next few weeks as Winters mockups up a new design

• True RTS/TPS Hero Units you can customize

Operators will expand significantly as we move into Doctrines, including:

• Driving vehicles

• Operating turrets

• Using new and ported abilities such as laser designation for support actions when we add in the ability to call in airstrikes and support options!

Pandemic Mode Progress

Pandemic is now the next major phase, built on the foundation validated through Horde.

Currently playable areas include:

• Calypso

• Half Moon Bay

• Treasure Island Open World Slice

Additional areas planned but currently locked:

• Angel Island

• San Francisco North

These areas will unlock later once missing enemy roster and mode pillars are complete.

What Still Needs To Be Finished

Here is the consolidated list, in one place, so there is no confusion.

Missing Or In Progress Systems

• January Goals

  • Remaining Vehicle Abilities And Behaviors

    • Bradley TOW

    • Merlin vehicle transport

  • Doctrines

  • Save System for Pandemic

  • BUGS, BUGS and Bugs! We still are hunting down desyncs and bugs as they are reported!

  • Game Balance - Is still ongoing and being tweaked. Michael is monitoring Steam/Discord for feedback

• February Goals

  • Any Remaining Bugs/Performance Tweaks/QOL Adjustments based on community feedback

  • Remaining Enemy Roster Needed For Angel to be unlocked

    • Leviathan

    • Birds

  • Additional Pandemic Regions Locked Until The Above Is Complete

    • Angel Island

    • San Francisco North

• TBD

  We are committed to not rushing to the "end" to ensure everything prior is working correctly. These are the ones currently in limbo that we will be tackling once the above list is "completely" done.

  • LHA6 & LCAC

  • Civilian Evacuation

  • Dynamic Civilian Groups

That is the remaining gap we are closing through Q1. Anything else will be discussed only after the current list above is done.

Q1 2026 Target

Our target through Q1 2026 is to bring back the remaining missing pillars and have the rebuilt version fully represent the complete Cepheus Protocol experience again, but better.

That means:

• More stability and performance

• Larger scale gameplay

• More and better maps

• Complete Pandemic mode pillars

• Operators expanding toward Doctrines

Final Notes

This build switch is about clarity.

From now on:

• The installed version of the game is the rebuilt version

• Legacy remains available as a preserved snapshot

• The rebuild is what we maintain and grow from here

If you want to help shape it, the biggest thing you can do is:

• Play the current build

• Give feedback on what feels good and what feels broken

• Report bugs and edge cases

Thank you for sticking with us through this rebuild period. The foundation is finally where it needs to be, and now we are building the rest of Cepheus Protocol on top of it.