Cepheus Protocol

by
Dev Update

Pandemic & Helicopter Preview Live

🎧 Last Time on CERC HQ…

Episode Summary:
This week’s deep-dive walks through major updates to helicopter systems and the expanding Pandemic mode. Robert, the project director, demonstrates new helicopter features like garrisoning, virtual interiors, unit rappelling, and multiplayer syncing — all while grappling with quirky bugs, AI edge cases, and polish work. The team also previews operator integration, showcasing players riding in vehicles and issuing commands mid-flight.

On the Pandemic side, the devs highlight big progress: aggressive AI expansions, new build orders, balancing tweaks, and evolving strategies during co-op playtests. You’ll hear how the infected respond dynamically to player actions, how real-time investigations and attack waves unfold, and what still needs work — including landing behavior, targeting bugs, and visual clutter in operator UI.

The episode wraps with roadmap insights: vehicles are taking priority next month over civilian systems. Expect tracked armor, artillery, and wheeled transports to enter testing soon, laying the groundwork for more refined battlefield mechanics and greater tactical depth.

https://youtu.be/CQWiGRInqg4

🎙️ Next CERC HQ – Livestream Details

🕔 When: Weekly Saturdays – 3 PM EST (New Time!)

đź“ş Where to Watch:

đź’¬ Topics We’ll Cover:

  • Co-op Progress

  • Total Revamp based on Community Feedback

  • Level Design Updates

🎤 Don’t miss our Live Q&A! We’ll be answering questions from the community during the stream.

đź“ş Missed a Stream? No Worries!
Pandemic Testing Build – Framework Phase

The first Pandemic test builds are live, focused on laying down the Pandemic game mode and the brand-new Faction Manager.

Opt-in under public-playtest-limited- This build will only be up for a few more days before we plan to merge it all into public-playtest

The Faction Manager is the framework for how factions “think” — deciding when to spread, defend, expand, or attack. It’s a vast improvement over the legacy system, which was disjointed and, frankly, pretty “stupid.” This new approach gives us the flexibility to expand and refine faction behavior as we go, ensuring Pandemic mode has a strong foundation to build on.

Pandemic – What’s in this build

  • Faction Manager Core: Chelsey establishes her initial hive with a clamped, staggered spread, preventing runaway infection on Day 1. From there, the Manager governs all expansion and attacks.

  • Task-Driven AI: Infected execute tasks assigned by the Manager, then report back on successes and failures to adapt future decisions.

  • The Faction Manager will also detect the units your using when you attack/defend a location attempting to counter your build orders. This is a huge improvement over legacy where they didnt even understand the concept of “counters”

  • All the Infection types from Horde : Standard, Spitter, Blowup, Brute

  • Four Core Task Types:

    1. Spread within owned zones

    2. Spread into other zones

    3. Attack faction targets

    4. Build defenses

Helicopters – What’s in this build

  1. New Units: The Sparrow, Charon, Merlin, and Scout Drone have been added. These are still pending balance work, so treat them as proof-of-concept and early previews.

  2. RTS Garrison Fixes: We believe we’ve resolved the remaining garrison-related bugs for RTS gameplay as of today. We’ll continue monitoring closely for edge cases.

  3. TPS Operator Riding: Operators can now ride helicopters in TPS mode.

    • If the spot you enter supports firing (like skids), you can shoot directly.

    • If it doesn’t, you’ll have access to a 360° pivot camera, similar to Arma, to maintain awareness.

    • Refinement in progress: Operator ↔ Helicopter interactions are still being polished. Expect more progress updates in the next 24–48 hours on Discord as we wrap this up and move into the helicopter vehicle/inventory system.

đź“… Schedule Change & Community Feedback

After two weeks of internal and public/private playtests of Pandemic mode, we’ve re-evaluated our roadmap priorities.

Originally, dynamic civilian groups and civilian evac systems were planned for October. However, testing has made it clear that pushing these side mechanics too early risks distracting from the foundation we’ve just established.

Instead, once we wrap up September’s goals — Chelsey AI, Juggernauts, Infection Towers, helicopter systems, and the population meter/progress UI — we believe the next step should be doubling down on the ground vehicles.

That means:

  • Using the base we’ve established with helicopters and applying them to implementing the remaining vehicles

  • Beginning the porting of ground vehicles (tracked armor, artillery, wheeled transports, etc.)

  • Moving directly into Doctrines to deepen strategic choices

We strongly feel this will ensure the core gameplay is polished and perfected before layering on secondary mechanics like civilian evac + dynamic civilian groups.

đź’¬ Your Input

We want to hear from you. Do you agree with this shift in priorities — focusing entirely on the core systems (vehicles, doctrines, core RTS/TPS mechanics) before circling back to civilians evac and dynamic civilian groups?

Your feedback will help us validate this direction and keep the roadmap aligned with what matters most to players.

🎯 Remaining Goals for September

  • Preventing investigations from draining infected population, which used to choke out proper attack waves.

  • Some minior polish on Enemy calculations which can make infected “dance” between targets

  • Custom Game Options

  • Helicopters + Operator integration + VTOL + Inventory System for Weapon support

  • Chelsey’s AI

  • Juggernauts

  • Infection Towers

  • Complete helicopter systems (Operator interactions, vehicle/inventory, VTOL)

  • Population Meter re-implemented at the bottom-left of the UI for tracking infection strength

We are currently on track to meet these goals — unless major last-minute bugs or issues arise.

🎯 Goals for October

  • Implement Base AI Vehicle Driving : Build from the foundation of legacy and improve adding support for vast improvements

  • Port all vehicles over – Only after we’ve implemented and tested 1 tracked, 1 normal tire unit for the different movement types they have

  • Update formation system for vehicles + joint movements from different types of units

  • Reimplement MLRS targeting computer system and port to the Striker Mortar & Stationary Artillery to use these systems. Earlier units used a “Fake” system where we did a VFX for the mortar then spawned a grenade at the end spot. the MLRS used a real projectile and “arch”. It was visually impressive and was a proof of concept of what we wanted to do with legacy units.