Synthetik 2 Feature Overview

Hey everyone!

Welcome to the Synthetik 2 Features overview!

Here we present the most important new features, tech and advancements from Synthetik 2 over Synthetik 1, basically like patch-notes just for a game.

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Universe & Factions

NEW - Universe & Faction design

Visual and gameplay design is now based around consistently themed and well defined factions, which redefine the world building and guide the creation of the Synthetik Universe

Check out the upcoming blog entry for more info.

Weapons, Items, Enemies and lore are now based on factions, no longer semi "random"

This is a huge paradigm shift in the creation of everything in the universe and adds a tremendous amount of quality and identity in terms of gameplay, aesthetics and creation of new content.

Synthetik 2 will start with two different enemy factions,

both from the Imperial Police Forces:

The Imperial S.A.T. (Special Assault Team)

Similar to the SWAT, the Imperial S.A.T. is a versatile force which relies of wheeled units and vehicles for raids on urban criminal activities and counter terrorism.

The Chrono Squad

High-tech elite strike forces with teleport capabilities, they strike fast, use fusion technology, rely on drones, mobility, and can quickly dispatch on high value targets, such as Android intruders.

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Classes

▩ Specializations

The biggest change for classes is the new specialization system where each class can be played in one of multiple variations, generally adding a gameplay changing new specialization ability and often changing more of the ability kit including its perks.

For example, the Riotguard class can unlock a offensive Guard Judge with stronger offensive capabilities, great against elite enemies, or the Riotguard Disruptor who can place shock sentries and builds upon area control and denial.

Essentially each main class consists of 3 different subclasses.

Specializations also allow bringing S1 classes back in a way they would not have been otherwise, the Grenadier is a mix of the demolisher and a soldier type class, while the Chrono trooper as example has a Chrono Breacher specialization.

The Recon class with its 3 specs (Recon, Anti-Material Recon, Recon Psyonic)

is following very soon and more classes and specs are to come!

▧ Focus

Then each Specialization has multiple Focus perks to choose from, which offer an additional twist upon the specialization and can be switched any time, same as the specializations.

More Focus perks are coming in the near future for even more choices.

▣ Synergy Auras (Upcoming)

Additionally, each Specialization offers a team synergy aura which brings some extra depth and combo play into team compositions. This will arrive with the multiplayer launch.

◩ Fully Moddable

Not to forget, you can easily create your own classes with UniversEdit and the existing classes can be easily extended with your own specializations and foci. Any humanoid or later even non humanoid model can be used for your own creation!

New Engine and Framework

Synthetik 2 is built from the ground up with our own unique new framework, on top of a much more capable engine, Unity, using the new High Definition Rendering Pipeline (HDRP).

This offers us unending new possibilities, from modern real-time 3D graphics and lighting, to physics, complex shaders, terrain, camera effects, 3d animations, ragdoll, real-time destruction, day and night levels, AI behavior trees, C# scripting and so many more advantages.

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UniversEdit - Next level modding

Additionally, our innovative UniversEdit framework which is built on top of the engine, grants us extreme flexibility in content creation and brings previously unseen next level modding capabilities.

You can create almost any content in the game without any programming or development knowledge, and that directly within the game main menu, no need to install obscure software with hundreds of hours of learning requirements and highly complex install and export workflows.

You can just open the Editor, copy a weapon, change the stats, press save and it will spawn in your game.

◩ UniversEdit allows creating:

- Your own classes,

- Specializations,

- Enemies,

- Items,

- Perks,

- Abilities,

- Buffs,

- Chests,

- Spawn tables,

- Random loot,

- Complex Upgrades

- Weapons,

- Attachments,

- Ammo Types

- Bosses, even Boss patterns,

- Shops,

- Difficulty modifiers

- Currencies

- Factions and more.

And you can use our big library of icons, sounds, models and more to make anything you like without a need to built custom assets. Many of these things can be created in minutes.

▣ The Voodoo Action Editor

The Voodoo Action Editor is one key element of UniversEdit, is used to create Items, Perks, Abilities, Buffs etc and allows creating highly complex and deep interactions that you would otherwise only get with real programming, and all that without any prior development knowledge.

▩ Ingame Mod Browser, downloads and uploads

No need to download zips from some external site and extract them into some hidden folder, you can just click a button in the menu and works right from the get-go.

Uploading a mod is also very convenient and works right from the game.

Really give UniversEdit a try, many things are incredibly easy, you can make your own weapon or class in literally 2 minutes, but some elements do have of course a bit more of a learning curve, like the Voodoo Action editor. Anyone can do it, you can do it!

Find more info about the Engine, Framework and Modding in this blogpost:

Modding Plans, New Engine and UniversEdit (synthetikuniverse.com)

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Weapons

◩ NEW - Technology Perks

- Weapons now gain one or more random perks based on their technology type

(Plasma weapons roll plasma perks)

▩ NEW - Attachments 2.0

Weapons can now have specific attachment type slots (like Grip, Stock, Receiver... different on each weapon) and roll from pools of each type (pick 1 Grip from 3 choices, from a larger pool of grips) This grants more defined weapon upgrade paths which differ more from weapon to weapon, especially within the same category of weapon.

At the moment, most weapons use 2 'wildcard' attachments, similar to Synthetik 1, and 2 specific attachments, which are picked to reinforce the weapon role.

▩ NEW - Dual Wield Weapons

Find some new dual-wielded weapons like the double shotgun revolvers!

(Maybe starter handguns can be converted to dual wield at a later point)

▧ NEW - Additional Features & Projectile mechanics

- New: Single shell reloading

- New: Ballistic arcing projectiles with capabilities for headshots

- New: Ground targeted projectiles

- New: Ricochet 2.0 - Bounce, Ricochet and Shrapnel deflections

- New: Physical ground and wall bouncing

- New: Continuous Beam weapons with recoil

- New: Technology based damage and AOE damage falloff curves

- New: Missiles can bounce and pierce and benefit from attachments

- New: Ammo and Explosions which can trigger abilities and effects

- New: Shoulder mounted weapons (not yet in use)

▣ Faction Variants (ongoing)

Weapons now gain variants based on their Faction instead of having one shared pool

(Police weapons roll Police variants) for stronger definition - (Variants right now are work in progress and will be expanded in the very near future. We also take community variants!)

▧ Improved Weapon Perks (ongoing)

Weapons generally have their own unique perk for extra identity for each weapon, this is similar to S1 but now is more consistent and contains more synergy elements or special stat scaling to add a second dimension to its usage. This is being expanded more in the near future, with Voodoo you can now also create your own perks for your weapon mods.

◩ Modding & Technical improvements

Recoil Curves, Normalized heat and fire-rate for easy balancing, enemies now use weapons instead of fake weapons, light, medium and heavy vehicle weapons are now modular and replaceable. Synchronized weapon slots for enemy vehicles and more. This builds an extremely strong technical foundation for the future.

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Terminals 2.0

The previous terminals with 1 random effect as well the god shrines have been completely redesigned and improved, offering much cooler thematic effects with higher impact, as well as having a lot more variation while being very favorable towards modding.

▧ New Terminal Types

The random terminal is replaced with a Gambling Terminal, Black Market Terminal and Medical terminal with more to come. Modding also supports creating new shops and extending their pools. With the terminal effects we tried to have many varied formats but its probably best you have a look for yourself.

Terminals now also have more impactful choices which have noticeable effects on your builds, more varied effects and with the much demanded tooltips and great new icons.

Each terminal also has an unique and instantly recognizable design.

God shrines have also been reworked and will be more expanded at a later point with a unique new concept.

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Alchemy System

The power of UniversEdit and its new action editor grants us uniquely deep new upgrade features for you to customize items and abilities like never before.

▣ Pandora's Box

Pandora's Box offers an unseen new level of depth for upgrades where you can get much more complex upgrades (but which might also backfire) - It is now possible to give items charges which had none before, take such away, add free casting, reduce cooldowns, add critical activations, quad activations, multi-casting and more!

▧ The Compositor

It is also now technically possible to add abilities to abilities, like adding a shotgun blast to your dash ability with the compositor. This opens up another new world of possibilities, both of these will also be further expanded.

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Items

▧ More total Items

In Synthetik 1 you could have 8 total items (+ dash),

Now you start with 4 active abilities and can still have up to 8 items however.

▧ New Item paradigm

Items of course return as you know them, but we wanted to reduce the hotkey requirements. All classes with each specialization now start with 4 abilities, and items can be triggered through varied ways, some together with the class abilities, some reactive with other effects. We feel this keeps the overwhelming majority of the depth but reduces fiddling with slots and hotkeys but we are monitoring this closely however.

▧ More varied and Improved triggers

Re-active items now also have better checks for activation, per example the new SWAT Masterkey only triggers when going close range and hitting an enemy, so you can manually control its activation with your movement and shots. Other items like Hyperfeed are activated with one of your abilities, which comes with synergy potential, but also can be weaker on certain classes, which we think is making the dynamic more interesting.

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Universe Technology Ruleset 2.0

The Ruleset defines the essence of all gameplay within the game and is as such very important. Similar to an RPG style "Fire, Water, Earth.." ruleset, the technologies are a balanced framework that allows making easily balanceable and always useful weapons and gear.

Revamped damage types

Any tech damage type (armor piercing, Laser, Fusion etc) now has clear advantages and disadvantages and brings a great foundation for modding as well. Any This shift in approach goes so far that you could put plasma ammo on your shotgun and it would be balanced without a single change needed.

For example, ballistic ammunitions are no longer straight upgrades, anti-material will be outshined by soft ballistic in close range and against targets with low armor or in ambushes.

Technology adjacent gameplay

Technology types now carry gameplay more implications and have specific

types of perks and stats linked with them.

Laser weapons will have first shot or last shot empower perks, high heat, heat based recoil,

low fire rate, stacking effects, focus on body shots and closer range and are weak against shields as example.

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Armor 2.0

The new Armor system is a simple but authentic system to handle damage reduction.

Armor and armor pen ranges from 0-100. If you have less armor penetration on the weapon than the target has armor, you have the equivalent chance to bounce or ricochet off the armor, dealing greatly reduced damage. If you have higher penetration than the target has armor, you have the equivalent chance to pierce the target with a chance to hit another but at slightly reduced damage.

This not only handles piercing beautifully by giving it a realistic way to appear but also means that a weapon with very high armor piercing, like a tank SABOT (a metal arrow)

is much less effective on a lightly armored target than on a heavy enemy tank as example. For a lightly armored target, a technology like explosive would be a much better fit.

In S1, higher armor piercing would always be better and bounces and piercing was arbitrary.

Find more info about the armor system on our Blog.

New damage mechanics:

- New: Backside Hits

- New: Piercing based on armor pen

- New: Deflection bounces

- New: Deflection ricochets

- New: Deflection shrapnel

- New: Weakpoints (any unit can have weakpoints)

- New: Damage Text 2.0

The new mechanics such as Backside Hits and armor deflections allow for more depth and varied tactics, are more realistic as well as give weapons more defined roles.

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Networking (Upcoming)

Additionally, Synthetik 2 will feature fully dedicated servers for up to 4 player online coop, this builds on a greatly expanded and highly superior system than the traditional peer-to-peer, even with all our efforts that went into the relay server system in Synthetik 1.

Dedicated servers offer much more stable and high quality online gameplay and are fully scalable to any demand. More info soon. We also work on re-joining.

Other

New - Save and Quit

New - Controller Rebinding

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And more!

As you can see, Synthetik 2 offers a crazy technical advancement in virtually every regard.

This is going to be a great foundation for the future, and we are looking forward for your input and contributions. New and old players will certainly find many cool new additions and dedicated Synthetik fans should find a new world opening with UniversEdit to bring their own ideas in the game!

Alright, see you on launch, we count on you!

Best - Shrike and Team FFG