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Planetside 2 – New Update Further Optimizes Esamir Objects, Physics & Memory Handlers

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Planetside 2

Well, you gotta admit that SOE is trying to fix PlanetSide 2. The game was a resource hog but after the latest updates, we can definitely some performance improvements across various PC systems. This latest update brings improved physics calculations, optimized objects in Esamir and a number of client memory optimizations. This update is live as we speak, and you can view its complete changelog below.

Planetside 2 PC Update December 17th Changelog:

Performance:
-Esamir Object Optimization. We optimized the number of unique objects, overall object count, and polygons per object on Esamir. This will give players the same environment based performance increases they see on Indar.
-Physics Optimization – We have changed the way we simulate various aspects of the server and client to more efficiently process players and vehicles in the game.
-Client Memory Optimization – Animations have gotten some serious work to reduce their overall cost without reducing quality. Many per-player animation costs are reduced for players at a distance.
-Additional client crashes fixed.
-UI – Optimized dynamic image loading and processing to reduce GUI advance spikes ( eliminates over 50% of the intermittent 4+ms spikes we were seeing )
-UI – Optimized data processing on the loadout pages

Balance:

-Significant changes have been made to infantry and vehicle balance. These changes are listed in the last sections of the patch notes and are over 10,000 words.

Holidays:

-Over the next few weeks you may come across some snowmen scattered across the frozen wasteland of Esamir. These jolly and harmless fellows can be blown up for a nice chunk of XP, and, if you can light up enough of them you may earn a special reward. Also, keep your eye out for a rare blinged out Golden Snowman who gives a very exclusive reward. If you see one, make sure you get it before your squadmates do!
-Nanite Systems has been hard at work on a new pistol. Get a silver medal with it and you will unlock a special title.
In addition to new holiday camos and decals, from the 18th of December through the 1st of January we will be having some huge sales in game.
-Each day during those two weeks a new category in the marketplace (such as “shotguns” or “helmets”) will be on sale for 50% off. In addition all Items of the Day items will be 99SC regardless of their original cost, and Members Only Item of the Day items will be 1SC, so make sure you log in every day and don’t miss out on anything good!
-Make sure to give your enemies the gift of C4 this holiday season!

Depot:

-Fixed camo coverage on several infantry weapons
-Razor fins attachment will no longer appear washed out at night
-Camo coverage and LOD adjustments to several vehicle attachments
-VS infantry weapons now have more camo coverage
-Weapon camos will no longer be applied to all the weapons in the slot; they will apply to just the one selected
-Increased the intensity of camo to 100% and added more coverage on MAX weapons
-Lowered the cert point cost of some optics on starting weapons to let new characters customize their weapon earlier.

Combat:

-Deployables should no longer sink into the ground
-Spawn Beacons can no longer be placed inside facility walls
-A bug allowing players to squad deploy as MAXs has been addressed
-Fixed an issue with fall damage not registering at heights below 100m
-NC scope’s magnification now correctly matches their labels
-AV turrets collision better matches the geometry
-Recoil animations while in iron sights have been toned down on several TR carbines
-Resolved an issue where certain items could be unlocked in the VR zone for use in the main world

Vehicles:

-Tank mines should explode more reliably when activated by vehicles
-Fixed an issue where the Liberator could bypass the Biodome geometry and kill players inside
-VS Mine guard is no longer displaying confusing allegiances (NC colors)
-Horn of Liberty should now properly unlock account wide
-Decals should display correctly on scythes
-Hood ornaments should now display when used in combination with bumpers
-Cockpit glass should all be fixed now

Animation:

-Fixed an issue with Spawn Beacon animation
-Improved iron sights animations
-Engineers using turrets should now have more accurate animations
-Revive animations should play more reliably
-Fixed an issue where landing gear on flying vehicles would end up in the wrong position

Misc:

-Occasionally, players would end up remaining in the world when servers were brought down; that should no longer occur
-Proximity repair hologram on the Sunderer should no longer appear incorrectly
-Fixed an issue where launching the game on Windows XP could cause the world to tint an odd color for a period of time
-Fixed a few issues relating to window resizing and initialization that could cause bugs and errors
-Running with multiple monitors should be tolerable now, but note that we don’t yet support UI window adjustments in this mode
-Fixed a graphical corruption issue that could occur with certain particles on AMD graphics cards
-A small group of accounts have had items removed that were incorrectly purchased without subtracting Station Cash.

Standard Spawn Options:

-Increased standard spawn options to include:
-Nearest Small outpost by lattice links
-Nearest Large outpost by lattice links
-This should alleviate situations where pilots and others are downed more than one region away from a friendly territory and are stuck with no good spawn options. This change will offer the nearest small outpost and nearest large outpost in addition to the nearest major facility that is already available. This should allow those players to either join the nearest front or fall back to spawn another vehicle at a larger facility. Please note that the distance is by lattice-links, not as the crow flies.
-You can now deploy at any warpgate regardless of your current continent.

Squad Leader Indicators:

-Functionality for a squad leader to mark a cap point has been added. This will add arrows to the objective indicator on the HUD that your squadmates can see. Hold the spot button down (q by default) to bring up the quick menu while targeting a capture point to set the indicator.
-Squad leaders no longer have to cert into the ability to set a primary squad target using the Q menu (QAM)
Players who previously purchased the Squad Objectives certification from the squad leadership certifications tree will be refunded the 30 CP cost

UI:

-Capture point capture progress bars should now update every .5 seconds instead of every 2 seconds
-Objectives are now clamped to the edge of the screen
-You will now receive a notification whenever you unlock a title
-When turning off your UI the overhead icons will once again hide
-Enable VSync whether windowed or fullscreen mode
-Continent map should load faster the first time you open it every game session
-Commissioner variants should no longer appear in the Certs menus
-Added some functionality to sort by name and rank on several social screens in the UI
-Map searching will no longer produce double results after swapping characters
-Addressed an issue where Sunderer icons could display in bad locations

World:

-Warpgate rotation
-Freyr Amp Station update. We’ve added multiple cap points to the Freyr Amp Station. Each cap point is tied to a nearby spawn room. By reducing the reliance on Sunderers for spawning, this should facilitate some fierce infantry battles at Freyr.
-Adjusted Biolab pain fields to follow capture status correctly
-VR Training zone minimap should no longer appear as black occasionally
-VR Training zone should no longer have black terrain