Starhawk 1.04.003 Update Today!

Today during a global server maintenance window at 3pm Central time, we deployed a small 1.04.003 Update to Starhawk which was almost entirely inspired by your feedback and we really hope you enjoy the update!

As some of you may know, in mid-October, we parted ways with Sony Computer Entertainment and it's Santa Monica Studio. Nevertheless, we have maintained a great relationship and we've worked together to release a small update for our Starhawk community. The release of this 1.04.003 update was something that everyone here at LightBox Interactive felt was the right thing to do for you, our fans. Our former colleagues at Santa Monica Studio agreed completely and graciously offered to have their QA team provide all the testing support needed for the 1.04.003 update even though it really wasn't an "on-the-books" project for them.

Now of course we were limited in what we could develop for this small update since it is not a full patch with a funded development cycle. However, we were still able to make a few really positive changes:

• Added new Arena load-out for small maps.
• Reduced Grinder damage in singleplayer.
• Added Grizzly to Lone Wolf [Blitz] load-out.
• Replaced Cloak & Shield in Gatekeeper game mode.
• Removed Outposts from small maps.
• Cluster Bomb weapon balance.
• Fixed spawn-in bug for Assault game mode.
• Changed Skill Score Leaderboard.

New Arena Load-Out:
There had been a request by the fans for awhile now for a simple non-vehicle load-out that could be used in our small maps and for modes other than DeathMatch. To help give players this option, we have added an Arena Load-Out to the small maps Junction, Relay and Glade, and it includes the Shield Generator, Pod Cannon, Supply Bunker, Watchtower, Auto-Turret, and Wall. This new load-out is available for CTF, TDM, Zones, DM and Assault.

Reduce Grinder Damage in Singleplayer:
Sure, most of our updates have to do with Multiplayer but we never lose sight of the solo experience! And for that reason, we felt we needed to make a change to the Grinder only in the campaign. For those of you who played the SP campaign in Starhawk, you may have noticed that when you got the Grinder, it was CRAZY easy to cut through enemy units under a stream of molten sparks. In fact, it was too easy. To help balance this weapon and maintain the right level of difficulty for the later missions in the campaign, we have reduced the Grinder damage by 33%.

Added Grizzly to LoneWolf [Blitz] Load-Out:
This change is very straight-forward and is simply a bug fix so LoneWolf and LoneWolf [Blitz] load-outs use the same Build & Battle units.

Replaced Cloak & Shield in GateKeeper Game Mode:
GateKeeper mode is very fun however some players had found that when using the Cloak and Shield in this flight-focused mode, a player could essentially be unstoppable. And the fans were right it was exploit-tastic. We looked at a variety of solutions and the one we settled on for the 1.04.003 Update was to replace the Cloak and Shield pick-ups with the Homing Missile and Flak Cannon pick-ups respectively. This change is isolated to just this gameplay mode and makes a huge improvement to the balance of GateKeeper!

Removed Outposts from Small Maps:
The small maps we added in the 1.04 Update were a great addition to the over-all set of maps in Starhawk! However, the fact that you could use Outpost Build & Battle structures in these intentionally very small maps was really not yielding the proper game experience. To resolve this, now Outposts are removed from the load-out if you choose one of the small maps like Glade, Junction or Relay. This change helps make these maps feel much better and the removal of the Outposts really helps drive more tactical gameplay rather than just the Outpost spam we were seeing.

A point of clarification: You can still choose the Trooper load-out on a small map like Glade, for example. It will show you that the Outpost is contained in that load-out however when you get into the game, the Outpost will be selectively pruned from the Build & Battle wheel. And again, this change is only for the small maps.

Cluster Bomb Weapon Balance:
Due to the way the Cluster Bomb was being used there were a couple of changes that we felt needed to be made. We still want to preserve the weapon's power on the battlefield but the sheer volume of Cluster Bomb kills relative to the other weapons needed to be adjusted. To resolve this we have made the pick-up take a bit longer to respawn. It was previously 60 seconds and now it is 75 seconds. While this may seem like a subtle change, 15 seconds does make a difference!

The second change we did to the Cluster Bomb was to combat the degenerate behavior of using the weapon at nearly point-blank range. In this situation, a player flying a Hawk could just jam a Cluster Bomb down the throat of a player or more often a group of players at such a close range that there was no real counter defense. To help resolve this, we have fixed the Cluster Bomb so that its explosive area of effect can damage the player who launched the Cluster Bomb. This means that a player STILL can do a point-blank Cluster Bomb attack however there is now some significant risk to do so.

Fixed Spawn-in Bug for Assault Game Mode:
When we released the new gameplay mode Assault in the Starhawk 1.04 Update, players were able to find a bug that allowed a player to spawn into the enemy team's base during certain rounds. This, as you can imagine, resulted in an erosion of the gameplay experience were were looking for! The 1.04.003 Update simply fixes the bug so you can no longer spawn into the enemy base.

Changed Skill Score Leaderboard:
We had received many comments about our Skill Score and Skill Score Leaderboard. Some players were seeing odd behavior like their Skill Score going down after a game they just won or other such seemingly odd changes. This definitely needed to get fixed. So we spent some time investigating and found that while the underlying math for the Skill Score is actually working quite well, the issue seemed to arise from server delays when a player's Skill Score was updated. This would result in you never really seeing the proper Skill Score when you looked at the Leaderboard.

We really wanted the Skill Score Leaderboard to be a very real-time leaderboard with high-frequency updates but the practical fact is that it never worked exactly the way players expected because it simply WASN'T as real-time as we needed. So, to improve this, we have made a change to how Skill Scores are processed.

Now in the 1.04.003 Update, all Skill Scores are collected for 24 hours and then processed all at the same time (at 4am Central time) in a much more complete and global fashion. This results in a Skill Score that reflects your overall game performance for the past 24 hours and greatly reduces the odd behavior of Skill Score changes that just didn't make any sense.

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We're incredibly fortunate to have such a passionate fanbase and we are truly thankful for all of your ongoing involvement in the Starhawk online community!

Hope you enjoy the update & have a very
Happy Holidays!

Stay tuned for an update on our new mobile game! 
 

MLG Quick Challenge #2 Winner!

Congratulations to TheGremlinKlown
winner of the MLG Roadkill Challenge!

GTK was a terror behind the wheel this weekend racking up over 2500 verified roadkills on poor unsuspecting foot-soldiers!  Unbelievable!  No one on foot was safe as he crushed them beneath his wheels, then did burnouts on their corpses!  In wreck-ognition for his weekend wheeled warfare MLG is awarding him the $500 prize!

Check out the graphs from the weekend carnage below!  You can see how many roadkills per hour he was racking up in the first image, and the second shows how much time the top 5 finishers spent playing this weekend!  These are just two of the nearly infinite number of graphs we can generate to gain insight into how people are playing the game!

Sign up with MLG before the next Quick Challenge starts by clicking here! 

MLG Quick Challenge #1 Winner!

Congratulations to Lightning__V
winner of the MLG Knife Kills Challenge!

The competition was fierce as he battled it out with several other top players over the weekend clawing his way to victory.  For his amazing knife skills MLG is awarding him the $500 prize!  If you missed out this week, don't worry, MLG has three more challenges coming up, each with their own $500 prize!

As with all of the Starhawk tournaments, we work closely with MLG to validate all of the leaderboard statistics through a very powerful system called Tableau.  In fact, we have a designer who is dedicated to the data collection and interpretation process who helps us understand all of the statistics generated by our game.  You've probably seen his charts and graphs when we post them on the forums.  He spent several days this week going through all of the top players in the quick challenge to ensure that everyone was playing fair and not 'killfarming' to inflate their statistics.  In the process he generated some really interesting charts such as this heat map showing where all of Lightning__V's kills took place over the course of the weekend!

 Sign up with MLG before the next Quick Challenge starts here!

Grizzly Week

Its Grizzy Week here at LightBox!  The new Grizzly Exo-Suit DLC has been available for a week, and the consensus around the community is that it's a pretty sweet new vehicle!  To celebrate its launch we're spending the entire week focusing on the development of the biggest new addition to the Starhawk arsenal with concept art and behind the scenes footage.

Today on the blog, we're showing off a few pieces from the initial weapon system exploration.  The first two slides were early ideas of what a fully armed Grizzly might look like.  These sketches show the artists playing around with various ideas for the weapons, but you can also see that the general look of the frame itself is starting to solidify (vs the image that we posted yesterday on Facebook).  There's still variation in the structure, especially in the legs, but by this point a direction has been selected, and our artists are starting to dial in the look.

The second two images show off detailed closeups for each of the Grizzly's long range and melee weapons systems.  During the process, our artists will use images of real-world objects to help them hone in on something that is fantastic, but also recognizeable to players as being rooted in heavy industry.  These are just a few of the many such sketches we produced, and are good representations of the weapon concepting process!

We'll have more Grizzly coverage all week so be sure to visit our Facebook page and follow @LBI_Studio on Twitter!

Starhawk MLG Tournament with $20,000 in Prizes!

I'm excited to announce that the North American Starhawk MLG leaderboard tournament is now LIVE!

 $20,000 in cash prizes!

Between now and November 11th players who are legal residents of the United States and Canada (other than Quebec) and register at http://gamebattles.majorleaguegaming.com/starhawk will be ranked on an MLG leaderboard.  At the end of that period the top 16 players will be sorted into two eight player teams with players 17-24 as alternates.  The winning team will  walk away with $1,500 for each player!  Second place players will take home a cool $750! That's $18,000 in prizes for the top 16 players!

In addition, MLG is running four weekend events, each with their own unique goal.  At the end of the two day scoring peroid the highest ranking player for each challenge will be awarded $500!

Here's how you get started!

1.  Register Now!
To get started, make sure you have registered a GameBattles id and connected it with your PSN ID. This can be done in your profile settings. This will allow us to associate your Starhawk activity with the MLG tournament.

2.  Play and Dominate!
Once you've linked your accounts, you're ready to compete for fame and cash prizes. Just play an online quick match in Starhawk and the results will be automatically recorded to the leaderboard here.

 3.  Your Goal!
Win as many online matches as you can between Sept 25th - Nov 11th. If you are ranked in the Top 24 on the leaderboard at the end, you will qualify for the final grand tournament to become our Starhawk champion.

Be sure to read all of the official rules before registering!

DLC - The Starhawk Way!

Last week we announced the new Starhawk 1.04 Update and hinted at the upcoming DLC.  Today, over on the PlayStation Blog, they revealed what the DLC would be, and...

PlayStation Plus members get all Starhawk DLC for FREE!

So if you're new to Starhawk -- and especially if you are a member of PlayStation Plus -- now is a great time to get into the game. Here's quick look at all of the new Starhawk goodies!
 

Over the weekend some players have had questions about how the DLC would be implemented and so right now we're going to demystify this topic a bit and try to answer them!

With our experience on Warhawk, we know that segregating players based on DLC ownership can force them into 'keeping up with the Joneses'.  The traditional expansion scheme essentially forces players to keep current with all of the latest expansions, or get left behind. When we set out to make Starhawk we really wanted to improve this experience, which is why we worked hard to make sure we could provide all of our new maps for free.  We knew that we would eventually have premium DLC content but our #1 goal was to maintain a great experience for all Starhawk players -- even those player who had not yet purchased the DLC.

The team here at LightBox Interactive explored a ton of different ideas to achieve this and we really think our final solution is simple and works great:

Purchasing DLC grants you the right to build it, but ANYONE can use it!

The way we're handling the DLC for the Grizzly and Pod Launcher goes like this:  If you purchased the DLC, you can use Build & Battle to call it down.  If you haven't purchased it, you can't call it down, but you CAN still use it!   If your teammate builds a Pod Launcher you CAN use it to launch yourself across the map.  If you find an unattended Grizzly you CAN mount it and use it in combat!  Hell, you can even use the LR3 Rail Gun to score a headshot on an enemy while he's stomping around in a Grizzly and then take his for joy-ride!

And if the battle is super-intense and you really need to purchase a Grizzly Exo-Rig or Pod Launcher ASAP, here's how!

So what about about the pricing structure?  Our other goal with for DLC was to make sure we were delivering a great value to the player.  And here we feel like we've really delivered.  Each skin is only 99 cents and is broken apart into various parts like boots, arms, chest, head, and legs that can be mixed and matched with any of your other skins! Some skins even come with color variations too. Vehicle paint-job packs are also only 99 cents and can be applied to any vehicle including the new Grizzly Exo-Rig! The Grizzly Exo-Rig and the Pod Launcher are only $4.99 each and never has there been a way to cause so much destruction for the cost of a cup of coffee!

Not to mention that each of the individual player skins, vehicle paint-job packs, Grizzly and Pod Launcher can all be purchased separately from one another.  Meaning you don't have to buy a big expansion if you're just interested in a single skin, vehicle or paint job!

It all hits the PlayStation Store tomorrow alongside the FREE 1.04 Update!

It's Here - The 1.04 Update!

The wait is finally over!  On September 25th the Starhawk 1.04 Update will be available for download!  1.04 is a huge update with a ton of brand new free content including 5 new maps and 3 new modes, balance changes, bug fixes and DLC purchasable from the PlayStation Store.  This is by far our most ambitious Update to date and one that has been in the works for quite awhile.  So without further ado here are the new features you’ll get to experience with the Update!

Five New Maps:
We’ve always said all of the new maps we make for Starhawk will be free and 1.04 makes good on that promise.  We know you wanted some smaller maps and we’ve delivered.  These small maps are great when you have less players and really shine in the new Deathmatch mode too.  Add them to your CTF, Zones, DM or TDM game lists.  We also included two new Hawk only maps to liven up your aerial combat. 

Cypress Glade:
In 1.03 we introduced the lush, green (and swampy!) environment of Cypress and included two brand new maps for this new planet.  Now with the addition of small maps we’ve got one more for you, the tiny islands of Glade.  This small map incorporates the gnarly tree roots and expanded pickup locations of the previous maps that were a big hit with players in 1.03 with a more compact layout for intese battles!

Space Relay:
The second small map in this update takes the fight to the tiny Relay station above the planet Dust.   There are a lot of tiered walkways on this map: perfect places to get the advantage on the players below you while they are distracted and shooting at someone else.

Scourge Junction:
Our final small map, Scourge Junction, is a derelict extraction site full of Crumbling bridges connecting the islands.  Vehicles with vertical mobility are key to victory here, just don’t run out of fuel and fall into the acid below! 

Scourge Breaker:
This new map for Gatekeeper and Dogfight takes you back to a previously unseen area on Scourge where you can riddle your target with fire from your Hawk.

Space Flotilla:
Ships and asteroids orbit Dust in high concentrations here.  Use the asteroids for cover and fly through the ship cargo bays to grab pickups in this new map for Gatekeeper and Dogfight modes! 

Three New Game Modes:
We’re always thinking about how we can take the core Starhawk gameplay experience and build upon it.  These three new game modes are a direct result of extensive internal gameplay sessions and discussions combined with player requests.

Assault:
In this territory control mode the teams are split up into attacker and defender.  The attacking team starts at one end of the map with a single drop zone and must capture each of the defending teams control points in order.  At the end of the first round the teams switch and the defenders become the attackers.  When both rounds are complete the team with the most points wins!  Assault is available on all of the original maps, Origin and Collider.

Gatekeeper:
This is our second hawk-only gameplay mode and adds a bit of order to the chaos of Dogfight.  Playing like a sports game in space or in the sky players will pick up a ball and attempt to fly it through several rings.  Each ring the ball carrier flies through increases his potential score by one.  Once he has flown through all of the rings he must then fly through the central gate to score the points, all while the opposing team is trying to shoot him down.  Gatekeeper is available on all of the original maps, Origin, Collider, and the new Dogfight/Gatekeeper maps Breaker and Flotilla.

Deathmatch Arena:
Many in the community called for Deathmatch on foot and this new mode is a direct answer to them.  Arena matches are fast paced free for all battles where the gear is dropped in from above automatically so all you have to worry about is killing the other players.  Since the respawn and drop pod speeds have been significantly increased there is little downtime when you die. This, combined with the generally smaller maps and unpredictable placement of buildings makes for a frantic gameplay experience!  Deathmatch Arena is available on Glade, Origin, Relay, Orbital, Junction, Conduit, Outlands, Basin, and Narrows.

Three New Build & Battle Loadouts:

"Trooper" is a loadout that is designed specifically to focus on troop vs. troop combat!

"Light-Weight" is a well balanced loadout that does NOT include larger vehiclels like the Hawk and Ox Tank!

And the "Speeder" loadout focuses on fast vehicle combat and does NOT the Vulture Jetpack!

Ground Pounder, Heavyweight and and Lone Wolf are all seeing slight revisions too!

Tool Tips:
This may seem like a simple convenience change, but one we think is an important improvement. To help players navigate the uplink we’ve added tooltips to the icons on the menu, and to most of the sub-menu options.  One of the most notable features of this change is that now you can see exactly what Build and Battle parts are in a loadout before you start a game.  

Recommended Player Counts:
Recommended player counts are a handy way of deciding what maps will play best with the number of players you have.  Or you can throw caution to the wind and stuff 32 players into the small maps.  It’s your choice, and now we’ve made it easier.

New National Clan Banners:
There was a request on the forums for some banners for countries in the Middle East, so we included Kuwait, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.  Rock them if you live there, or you just want to represent your heritage.

More Pickups & Rift Barrels:
We got some really great feedback that the extra pickups and barrels in the new Cypress maps were a hit, so our designers have gone back through all of the old maps and added lots of new pickups.  This was a huge fan request and we’re glad we could make it happen.

M.A.W. Rocket Launcher:
Previously troops didn’t really have a lot of options for dealing with the zippy Sidewinder, it was basically ‘don’t stand in the open’, and ‘hope they dismount’.  Or maybe you were lucky and had a few proximity mines on hand.  Now the M.A.W. locks onto the heat signature of the Sidewinder giving troops on foot a way to deal with the jetbike.  This adds a new layer of utility to the M.A.W. and a new layer of complexity for the Sidewinder driver.  With no method to scrub the incoming missile, the driver is going to need to use his wits and the terrain to avoid destruction.  This change has a dramatic impact on ‘Sidewinder Races’ in the new CTF.

Grinder:
The Bruiser skill has been replaced with the Grinder skill, allowing you to start the match with a grinder.  We’ve also made it spin up a bit faster and given it a slight range extension.

Galloway Revolver:
The pistol has had a slight boost to headshot damage, both in and out of OTS!

More Score & Time Options:
With the changes to the capture rules in CTF in 1.03 we wanted to allow for higher scoring games.  Now you can go as high as 15.  We also heard that you wanted more flexibility with the Zones score limit options so we’ve added 2500, 5000 and 25000(!) limits.  In addition there are several new game length options so you can dial in your perfect game length and these are totally adjustable on our servers.  This gives us the power to make these changes based on player feedback without the need for an update!

In-game scoreboard in Deathmatch and Dogfight:
Checking the score in the modes where you were forced to spawn in used to be a drag.  The only way you could see it was to open the uplink while everyone else in the game was climbing over each other to be the first one to kill you.  Now the scores are displayed in the game without having to take your fingers off the trigger.

XP Payouts for Tier 2 and 3 in Zones:
Previously there wasn’t much personal reward for sticking around to get your zones up to rank 2 or 3;  XP was only paid out on the initial capture.  Now you’ll get XP for each rank you help secure.   So stick around and help your team hold the zone while you collect XP!

Only Clan Leaders & Officers can Initiate a Clan Match:
There was some concern from clan leaders that rogue members were able to create unauthorized clan matches which could have a negative impact on the clans W/L ratio.  Now the clan tag options are unavailable to anyone but a clan officer or leader.

Cake and Fist Icons removed:
We removed the cake and fist icons from the game list leaving only the skull icon.  Putting a cake icon on a game was a big neon sign that basically said 'fresh meat'.  Now new players will know when a game is probably too rough for them, and veterans (all you blue 50+ players) will be able to join the widest number of games possible.

PlayStation Store Button:
A PlayStation Store button has been added to the uplink to make it easy to find new DLC content! 

More Rift Energy in Homeworlds:
We’ve heard the request for more Rift Energy while in each of the multiplayer Homeworlds.  Now you will start with quite a bit more!  This should help speed up the rate that you can build stuff!

Starhawk Specific Network Scanner:
To help aid players in debuging their home networks, the Starhawk 1.04 Update includes a new network connection scanner that will trigger automatically in the event of a failed network connection. Certainly disconnects from the internet can happen for a wide variety of reasons, but based on all of the data we have collected, the vast majority of them are related to port  blockage on a player's home network. The new network scanner will inform you of any ports that maybe blocked that are negatively impacting your Starhawk connection.

Prospector Tuning & Create Game Changes:
We’ve modified how damage is scaled with 2-4 player games.  No, four player games are still challenging, but much more manageable.  In addition we fixed an issue that was causing certain tough enemies to spawn less than the desired amount in games with less than 4 players.  To put the icing on these changes we’ve also increased the XP payout in co-op mode.  And to make Prospector games easier to start and join we’ve given you the ability to set a game name, difficulty and make the game public or private.  Public games will now show up on the game list.

Quickmatch Improvements:
We've added all three new game modes as well as Prospector mode to the Quickmatch menu to make finding them a snap! 

Rage Quit Penalty:
Nobody likes a sore loser (unless it’s in a hilarious youtube video) so players who rage quit the game while it is in progress will now post a loss.  We know that there are times and circumstances where players should be allowed to quit out and we have allowed for that in this new system.  Players will not take the quit penalty if they leave in the first 5 minutes of joining a game, if they have very low skill score, or have earned 0XP so far in the match.  In addtion we have made this all tuneable on the server so that we can make adustments to the system to ensure that its accomplishing our goal of enforcing good sportsmanship.

Up Next Display:
And because we recognized that the only way you could tell what map was next was to load into it AND we recognized that maybe you didn’t want to play that one AND we recognized that the only way out was to take a quit penalty we added the next round details to the intermission screen.  Between rounds the map, loadout and mode will be displayed in the upper right hand corner.  No more surprises when the CTF game you joined turns into TDM!

 Whew... That's a ton of new stuff!
The 1.04 Update drops on September 25th!

Update 1.03.001 is now LIVE!

The 1.03.001 Update for Starhawk was deployed during server maintenance today, August 10 at 2pm Central time and included the following changes:

• Two new maps on the planet Cypress.
• Prestige Levels.
• New space station homeworld "Waypoint".
• Team balance fixes.
• Updated voice chat system.
• PTT (push-to-talk) option.
• Vulture Jet-Pack eject.
• Rift Barrels on Mini-Map.
• Misc. Bug Fixes.
• Ranked Option.
• Skills shortcut on respawn screen.
• Display of Build & Battle icons while respawning.
• Display nearby Build & Battle structures.
• Cooldowns for Host kick-player and team-switch.
• Interactive music update.
• Capture the Flag scoring change.
• Top-Sorted customization unlocks.

Two New Cypress Maps:
The biggest addtions in this update are the two new awesome maps on the swamp world of Cypress. For more details on the FREE Cypress Map pack that is included in the Starhawk 1.03 Update, CLICK HERE to read a PlayStation blog post written by LightBox Interactive's President, Dylan Jobe. 

Prestige Levels:
In the initial version of Starhawk, we supported levels 1-50. To be quite honest, we thought that would have the player community covered for quite some time. However, we had underestimated the rate at which people were going to get through the levels so we had to accelerate the release of our prestige levels for those players who are above 50. The Prestige levels in Starhawk are not numbers; they’re a Greek symbol ranking of ALPHA through OMEGA. The Greek symbol will be displayed by your name in-game. These are very hard ranks to achieve and the jump from level 50 to ALPHA is steep because these are really intended for the hard-core community.

New Space Homeworld “Waypoint”:
In Starhawk, Homeworld’s are like lobbies. They are 3D levels where you and your friends can go to party-up, talk tactics and then pick a game to join. This new Homeworld is a cool space station. We added this because we really wanted players to enter a deep-space “lobby” to mess around in.

Team-Balance Fixes:
There were some bugs in the party/clan cohesion system where servers would keep parties and clans together in *ALL* cases and this resulted in some brutally mis-matched games. This has been fixed! There were some other issues that resulted in messed-up team balance and we have resolved those as well. Should be a ton better!

Revamped Voice Chat System:
During the initial launch of Starhawk we received reports from the player community about voice-chat dropping after a few games or in some cases, the voice-chat would simply not work. As you can imagine in a deep, team-based game like Starhawk, voice-chat is critical. So we did a ton of digging to find-out what the issue was and it ended up requiring a change to our Client/Server voice system. This change makes the VOIP far more stable and resolves the voice connection issues that some players had been experiencing in the past.

Push-to-Talk Option:
This was requested by so many players, and in concert with the revamped Voice Chat System, the PTT option really is a great addition. Now players have the option to have their microphone turn on when they press L3 rather than automatically when they talk. I guess, too many players were being yelled at by their Moms, had crying babies in the background, or hell, maybe both! You can find the PTT option in the Audio Settings menu in the Uplink.

Vulture Jet-Pack Eject:
Players are now allowed to dismount while flying around in a Starhawk if they have a handy dandy Vulture Jet-Pack equipped.

Rift Barrels on Mini-Map:
To help aid players and their use of the Build & Battle system, we decided to add small icons on the mini-map where we’ve placed the Rift Energy Caches — those are the barrels that you shoot that burst open with Rift Energy that you can spend to build your arsenal of destruction. The blips on the map are displayed when the barrels are active and are *NOT* displayed when the barrels are waiting to respawn.

Bug Fixes:
These are not as super-sexy as free maps, but the fact that they are fixed will really help the community. We also addressed some host migration issues, a number of crashes and network instability issues, and even the laggy pick-up bug was fixed as well.

Ranked Option:
Another feature that was requested by players was really two requests related to how games post stats. The first point brought up by players was regarding stat-padding going on in password protected games, and since those games were password protected, they should not count as real ranked games. Now, you can still have a very private game with a password but your stats will not post. Also, if you are having a Clan vs. Clan game you have the option to turn stats on or off — because it might be a practice or scrimmage. Furthermore, if you are doing a Clan Scrimmage (your clan in both Rifter & Outcast slots) the stats will *NOT* post to the server. This is to keep clans from stat-padding in locked-out games.

Skills Shortcut at the Respawn Screen:
Players really wanted a quick way to change skills without having to leave the respawn screen. So…we added a little tab in the upper right corner of the respawn screen that allows you to press TRIANGLE and jump right to the skills menu! Oh, and we also now allow you to change your skill at other places in the Uplink instead of only in-game.

Build & Battle Icons While Respawning:
Another thing we did to help players when using the Build & Battle system was to display a simple graphic icon of each of the structures on the battlefield as the player is drop-poding into combat. This simple change really helps players know what structures are already built and helps them make better use of the stuff their team has built. Not to mention it helps let you know immediately where you should run when you crack-open your drop-pod!

Display Nearby Build & Battle Structures:
There are now some new visuals to help players recognize Build & Battle structures that are built nearby. For starters, any time you place a structure; Starhawk very clearly displays how many are nearby. It also now highlights those nearby structures on your map *AND* displays some markers on the edge of the screen to help inform you that not only is there a structure nearby, but which direction it is.

Cooldowns for Host Kick and Team Switch:
There were a number of exploits that could occur in the original version of Starhawk where players would change teams rapidly or a host would quickly kick a ton of players. That can no longer occur because we track when you perform one of these actions and block you from doing it again for a set amount of time — and we can tune the time if we need to.

Interactive Music Update:
After playing Starhawk for so many hours, we really felt that the music was not kicking-in as frequently as we wanted it to. There were many times when you’d be in the heat of combat and there’d be no music at all. We felt this hurt the pacing and in fact some players in our community noticed the same thing. So the 1.03 Update includes some new tweaks to the interactive music system and the more frequent music makes a big difference.

Capture the Flag Scoring Change:
We’ve been playing CTF in Starhawk a ton here in the studio and we’ve always felt that there were too many games ending in draws or times when the match would get into awkward stalemates. So with the 1.03 Update, we have changed one of the key rules for CTF and one of the key contributors to the stalemates. Now, to score a point in CTF, you need to take the enemy flag back to your base — period. Your team’s flag does *NOT* need to be there for you to score. Now certainly, your team still needs to play defense because you don’t want the enemy team taking your flag and scoring, but this change makes the pacing so much better. Much faster and far fewer draws and stalemates.

Sorting Unlocked Customization:
Now this is more of a simple convenience thing but we changed the way the various characters and vehicle customization options are presented so that the unlocked ones are always displayed at the top of the list. Not a super-big change at all but I thought I’d include it here.

Drop-Pod Upgrade:
One of the things that we were experimenting with during our Starhawk playtests to help combat “base-ravaging” was to make the Drop-Pod more deadly. Our whole design goal with the drop-pod system was to make the act of respawning in your home base an incredibly powerful weapon. This was to help combat against “base-ravaging”. After a lot of review, and play testing and tweaking, we decided to upgrade the drop-pods to be more maneuverable *AND* have an increased impact radius. This along with some changes we made to the respawn timer really makes a huge positive impact on the reduction of “base-ravaging”.

Custom Music via XMB:
In Warhawk we added support for your own music and we’re doing the same in Starhawk. The 1.03 Update now allows you to play your own music through the XMB. So if you want to experience Starhawk’s unique Build & Battle gameplay while blaring Pat Benatar you totally can!

We hope you all enjoy the update and let us know what you think!