The Short Version

v0.2.0 is the biggest combat release since the open beta. Eight new weapons, three new armor families, a completely rebuilt accuracy pipeline, a rewritten ricochet system with proper visual feedback, smarter AI that actually uses its cover, and a long list of quality-of-life and balance changes. This did require a full wipe.

Highlights, if you only read one paragraph: the weapon catalog doubled, guns now have real class identities with meaningful range bands, equipment condition has been simplified into a single number, enemies now drop what they were carrying instead of generic loot, and fights are a lot more readable thanks to the new recoil, sway, and ricochet visuals.

New Weapons

The arsenal grew from 12 to 20 variants. Every new weapon has a distinct role rather than just being a stat-block upgrade of an existing gun.

  • Corvid — Heavy revolver
  • Wasp — Compact full auto pistol
  • Forge-Pattern — Light machine gun
  • Marauder — Full-auto assault rifle
  • Sabre — Battle-rifle
  • Twinfang — Scattersholt pistol
  • Stinger retune — The Stinger is now a proper precision full-auto carbine with single and full-auto fire modes
  • Viper retune — The Viper is now a mag dumping SMG

New Armor

Armor lineup doubled from 6 to 12 variants, with three brand-new family identities.

  • Wraith Shroud — Ultralight stealth armor
  • Drover Rig — Medium pack-rat armor with bonus carry
  • Citadel Exo — Ultra-heavy and slow

Weapon Handling, Rebuilt

The entire accuracy pipeline was rewritten from the ground up. Your shots no longer resolve from a single hit/miss roll — every bullet fires through a composable accuracy stack:

  • Sway — a slow idle drift that tightens when aiming down sights
  • Recoil — per-shot kick that accumulates with sustained fire and decays when you stop
  • Vertical pull — each weapon has its own muzzle climb signature
  • Movement — firing while moving adds a movement-speed-scaled cone
  • Distance — shots beyond effective range get a falloff penalty

Ricochet

Ricochet scales linearly on ammo penetration vs armor class. Low-pen rounds bounce off heavy armor; high-pen punches through. Match your ammo to the target.

Deflections get a PLINK! floaty and a bullet-shaped rebound particle. Armor condition decays on a smoothed curve with per-caliber loss rates — heavier hits cascade faster near broken. A dedicated ARMOR BROKEN toast marks the moment.

Durability, Simplified

The old two-layer durability system (separate "condition" and "durability" bars) has been collapsed into a single condition value.

Condition still has six tiers (Pristine, Used, Worn, Battered, Damaged, Broken) and each tier applies real penalties to spread, sway, recoil, reload time, and jam chance. A Battered weapon is worse than a Pristine one. A Broken weapon won't fire.

Smarter, Fairer AI

AI got the biggest rewrite in the release. Enemies now use the exact same equipment pipeline players do, and the difficulty of an encounter comes from gear and behavior — not from hidden stat bonuses.

Tier system. Enemies are classified T1 through T5. Each tier pulls from a weighted pool of weapons and armor — T1 Scouts will never show up with a Thunderbolt; T5 Tanks are dominated by Citadel armor and heavy weapons. Pools are seeded per-match, so a given raid has its own loadout personality.

Always-drop on kill. Kill an enemy, loot their weapon. Kill them wearing Citadel armor, get a Citadel armor drop with rolled condition. Plus tier-appropriate ammo and loot entries. The days of killing a Soldier and finding bandages are over.

Fire Modes

Weapons with multiple fire modes are now toggleable with B. The Stinger cycles between Single and Full-Auto. The Vector cycles Burst(3) → Single → Full-Auto.

Jams

Weapons can jam. A weapon in worse condition jams more often, which is another reason to maintain your gear.

Networking

A cluster of subtle disconnection and handoff bugs got a proper fix. The short list:

What's Next

The roadmap after v0.2.0 leans into content depth: weapon mods and attachments, procedural loot affixes, more map biomes, more missions, and deeper crafting trees. The new weapon class and tier systems are the scaffolding the rest of the roadmap hangs off of, so expect them to keep getting richer.

Jump in, break some gear, and let us know what feels right and what doesn't. Every raid you run helps shape the next release.