New update: New Varadero, telecommunications towers, claw sharpness

New Varadero

By @feroxz

Aurallianz has ported a new planet map: New Varadero

It is a beach map with both landing zones at the north, a crashed hunter ship southeast, and a cave network southwest.

It also has a surgery table near the northwest landing zone.

Telecommunications towers

• Comms towers are in, which need to be repaired, powered, tuned with a security access tuner, and turned on before marines on the planet can use radio channels.

• This change also renames Marine Common to Almayer and makes it impossible for it to work on the planet, regardless of whether or not comms towers are up.

• Two comms towers randomly spawn in one of a few preset positions and are visible on the tactical map by Command at round-start. Make sure to check where they are before choosing your landing zone.

• Only one needs to be enabled for radio channels to work on the planet. In a future update, having two will enable Marines to deploy a nuke after 2 hours or let Xenos make a King. Once that is implemented, they will also give tech points.

• The Almayer and the dropship always have all radio channels available if they have not landed on a planet without a comms tower enabled.

• Rotary phones and the RTO backpack have been added as well, which let you ring specific departments or marines to communicate with them. They can be used even if comms are up if you really want to catch someone's attention. Any squad role can get an RTO backpack from their vendor, but it is cheapest for Squad Leaders and Fireteam Leaders, so you can expect @commissarspectre to have one every game.

• Command will also always be able to message a specific squad through their overwatch console, regardless of whether or not comms are up.

Claw sharpness

By @officialsans

It no longer takes 500 years for a xeno to break a wall or window frame, depending on the xeno.

Each structure has a set amount of hits to be destroyed depending on the claw sharpness of the specific xenonid attacking it.

Corpsman pressurized reagent canister chem dispensers and vendor rework

By @vermidia

Hospital corpsmen now have a dispenser in their prep rooms that can be used to make some simple canister mixes, removing some of their reliance on medbay. However, they will still need to go there for complex chems.

This also reorganizes corpsmen vendors to have fewer useless choices and changes the recommended items.

Surgical cases now also correctly fit surgical line and synth graft inside them.

This update also adds all missing EZ autoinjectors to the research medilathe, as well as the 30x6 medic autoinjector.

Another change is a fix to bleeding while dead. Your heart will now correctly stop, and blood will no longer drain while you are dead.

Alongside this, hyposprays now correctly only take medical skill 1 to use.

Lurker and Runner changes

By @rainbeon

• Lurker and runner leap now correctly self-roots instead of self-stunning. This means they can attack, shove, and initiate grabs immediately after a leap without waiting but still cannot move.

• Lurkers also self-root themselves for 1.5 seconds when leaping a marine while invisible, up from 0.7 seconds, and will no longer stun themselves when leaping a marine while still visible.

• Lurker will also correctly un-root themselves when attacking marines after a leap.

• Alongside this, downed players can no longer be pulled over tables or window frames without dragging them onto them first, and Runners can once again instantly walk through window frames without climbing through them first.

Sentinel tweaks

By @vermidia

The Sentinel has had its missing ability to drain some medicine with its spits added.

This also fixes some of the Sentinel's abilities being weaker than intended:

• Paralyzing slash kicks in 1 second faster and stuns for an additional second.

• Slowing spit lasts for 8 seconds instead of 5 and has a 2-second cooldown instead of 1.5.

• Scattered spit has a 45-degree spread instead of 60 and has a 6-second cooldown down from 8.

New lobby art, lobby songs, and hijack song

By @wendyribstonofpippin, @nightyshade, and @bolgarich

This update brings The Fallen Queen lobby song by Bolgarich, Enemy is Unknown lobby song by Nighty, and Storm the Iron Hive hijack soundtrack by Nighty, alongside four new lobby art backgrounds by wendyribstonofpippin

Other changes:

• Fixed the motion detector not showing blips while worn on the belt or suit storage slot, by @vermidia

• Fixed dual-wielding SMGs or rifles having higher than intended accuracy and damage. They now have 75 added degrees of spread, while dual-wielding rifles will cause their bullets to deal 70% less damage, and dual-wielding SMGs will cause their bullets to deal 50% less damage.

• Fixed operation Bassmaster not finding any of the boxes of shotgun shells that were supposed to be there in the underground lake house in LV.

• Added information tags, which can be added to the memorial in remembrance of fallen marines, by @vermidia

• Added ghosts being able to see the tactical map.

• Added the CO's Mateba, command pouch, large general pouch, and correct clothing, by @gwonkbro

• Added scorch marks to grenades and CAS' GAU-21, by @cybertropic

• Added the sniper specialist's prepare position ability to their ghillie suit, which lets them become invisible while stationary and shoot a few shots before becoming visible again, by @officialsans

• Added the nailgun, by @cybertropic

• Added the D18 hummingbird, which fits into shoes, by @fungifellow_4551

• Added new tactical map blip sprites, by @vermidia

• Added admin event spawns for the Corporate Executive Specialist and Supervisor, ICB Liaison, and the Interstellar Sapient-Life Rights Observer.

• Added the missing grenade satchels and mini power cells to the Requisitions vendor.

• An attached silencer now lowers the range at which gunshots can be heard.

• Fixed the max ranges on some xeno projectile ranges being incorrect.

• Fixed consuming xenonid fruit being too slow, by @vermidia

• Fixed the uniform surplus vendor not having medium armor, by @macman2003

• Fixed the bipod not being able to shoot sideways at a 90-degree angle, by @rainbeon

• Fixed promoting someone to aSL incorrectly removing command comms from all other aSLs.

• Fixed sensor towers not changing their appearance when breaking automatically over time.

• Fixed the fire axe not prying unpowered doors instantly like the crowbar does.

• Fixed ice walls on Shiva's not being destroyed by explosions.

• Fixed the M4SPR with a bipod healing damage with melee attacks.

• Increased the time it takes for the round to end from 2 to 5 minutes, and to start from 2 and a half to 3 minutes.

• Remove alt clicking yourself with a gun to suicide. Right clicking yourself to do it remains.

• Added buttons to open the tactical map and overwatch in the groundside operations console UI.