Preview from Matt: New Horizon

Hi everyone.

It's been quite a while since we have had a new version of APB this large.

So I thought I would take some time to break everything down that is coming over a series of blog posts. But before I do, I want to acknowledge a couple things about version 1.31.

First, and most importantly, we focused a lot on new free content. It's something I have wanted to do in the past, but for various reasons we haven't been able to. It's a bit of an experiment, as we're now giving away more free items than ever in the regular progression of the game. We took time to identify and fill in gaps for weapons and vehicles that otherwise weren't available.

Second, this patch brings together content and features that have been in the development for a while. Honestly, it sort of snowballed. As the weeks and months have passed, more and more items have been pushed into this new version. As the name implies, we're hoping New Horizon sets a new bar for APB and offers a "jumping on point" for many players who have felt there was nothing new in the game.

Third, there was a lot of R&D required for this patch. Little Orbit has never added contacts to the game or modified any of the district geometry. In some cases, we had to write entirely new plugins to build compatibility between APB and newer modeling systems. We've also had layoffs, so there was some retraining required to even do some of the things we've already done in the past. Regardless, I feel like our progress will enable updates like to happen a bit more quickly going forward.

Lastly, we are in final testing on many of the components in this patch, but it is our goal to launch Version 1.31 New Horizon in the next couple of weeks.

With that out of the way, let's jump into what is coming.

Major Additions

• (2) New Contacts - Lucas 'Van' Rooyen and Lynette Casey

These two fearsome higher-ups in their factions are looking for new recruits to do their bidding in return for rewards that will help you stay on top of the ever-changing street wars of San Paro. Both of these characters have been in the APB lore for quite a while, and it was important to me that their rewards and storylines feel on par with other contacts that were already in the game. I will be posting a separate News blog with a full run-down of Lucas and Lynette's rewards soon.

• SARD Anti-Cheat

APB has had many different integrations in the past, but I felt it was important to take the proper time to evaluate both old and new solutions. This time around, I had two major criteria: (1) client and server side support and (2) custom integration where Little Orbit collects the penalty information, but we apply our own rules on how to handle cheaters. The team at SARD has been fantastic to work with, and after months of development, we are finally ready to launch.

• Re-distribution of contact rewards and lowered all mod Rank requirements

We feel this is a significant quality of life improvement. We decided to lower the Rank requirements for R195 mods to level the playing field between older and newer characters. With that same goal in mind, we also identified gaps in the vehicle progression and redistributed vehicles to unlock more cars sooner. And finally, we added missing weapons like the Showstopper, the NTEC 7c, and the N-HVR '243' 'Scout' to the player progression.

• Changes to the Waterfront

We knew we couldn't launch two new Waterfront contacts without addressing some of the player complaints about that district. We've added more cover around common spawn areas and objective locations as well as more access routes to spots that were previously very hard to attack. These edits are still being completed, so I will be posting a separate News blog with the new changes to Waterfront soon.

• The ISSR-C 'Kingdom' Legendary

We decided to have a little fun and also add a new legendary. The ISSR-C 'Kingdom' is RedHill Homeland Defense's new cutting-edge, fast, short-ranged burst rifle made up from parts of Nekrova's infamous ISSR weapon series with an integrated RedHill burst module. Its quick four-round bursts make it suitable for close to medium-range fights whilst retaining Nekrova's trademark of deadly accuracy.

Full Patch Notes:

• Added two new Tier 4 Contacts to the Waterfront district.
• Added three new modifications.
• Added many new clothing items for both body types.
• Added SARD Anti-Cheat.
• Reworked many areas of the Waterfront district to improve gameplay.
• Added the ISSR-C 'Kingdom' burst rifle as a new Legendary gun available for purchase at Anne inside the Joker Store through Joker Tickets.
• Changed the Rank requirement of all mods that previously required a Character Rating of 195 or above. These mods will now have a Rank Requirement of R40, 60, or 80 and cost 20.000, 40.000, and 60.000 APB$ respectively.
• Increased the range in which Mobile Spawn Points become invalid from 35m to 55m.
• Decreased the Health and Stamina damage of the DMR-AV Sniper Rifle to decrease the range in which it can Kill in two shots from 88-100m to 95-100m. The ability to stun in two shots has been removed entirely. The DMR-SD is unaffected by these changes.
• Decreased the range of the OBIR by 5 meters. We are going to revisit this change once we are closer to making larger balance adjustments but we feel like the gun is currently too dominant and would like to address that for the time being.
• Added 3-Point Sling 3 to the ARMAS and Joker Store versions of the non-legendary Showstopper Pistol and renamed it to Showstopper 'Quickdraw'.
• The following vehicles unlock their 0 to 4-slot versions one entire Contact Tier sooner.
  • Balkan Varzuga
  • Balkan Ravan
  • Macchina Calabria
  • Macchina Cosenza
  • Packer Ceresco
• Retroactively added the following vehicles to late-game contact progression:
  • Growl S4
  • Dolton Fresno D400
  • Charge Sentinel CS904
  • Dolton Montane D230
  • Dolton Montane D430
  • Balkan Varzuga Rally 353 XS
• The Sungnyemun Mirage now supports primary and secondary police lights.
• Fixed various LOD issues of the Sungnyemun Mirage.
• Fixed multiple minor issues of the Sungnyemun Mirage.
• Added the Mirage 'Sundown' and 'Horizon' presets to the Joker Ticket Store. These were designed by an awesome community member that goes by the name of ElinSylwiaVT.

More to come.

Thanks, Matt

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