Hi everyone,

We are excited to announce that the second Pre-Order Beta of Insurgency: Sandstorm is now open!

You can jump into the Beta and play right now by pre-ordering the game on Steam at a 10% discount. Owners of the original Insurgency, which now boasts a player population of over five million, will receive an additional 10% loyalty discount, available through the end of the year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DheJOeInks
Pre-Order Beta 2, which is now live, features two new maps compared to the first Beta, for a total of four maps and four modes, including offline coop, from the final version of the game, character customization, dozens of weapons, and hundreds of loadout options (including explosives, armour, and ammo carriers).

Thanks to all the positive feedback Insurgency: Sandstorm received during the first Pre-order Beta earlier this month, the team will be using your feedback to continue to polish and optimize the game up until launch and beyond. We are now happy to let players experience the the intensity of modern combat in this Pre-order Beta phase.

Beta 2 is still a development build of the game and an on-going work in progress. We use betas as an important tool for gathering player feedback, studying system performance, and balancing the game. As such, it is important to stress that this is not a representation of the release version of Insurgency: Sandstorm.

As you can see in the Pre-Order Beta 2 changelog , the team has worked hard on this new version, but you may encounter, bugs, balance and/or performance issues. We encourage all participants to use the and forums to report any issues so that our team can continue working on them for the release.

Before playing, please check out:

• Quick Start Guide
• Official FAQ]
• Known Issues

Insurgency Sandstorm Pre-Order Beta 2 - Update 30/08/18

Optimization

• Large reduction in draw calls across all maps to improve framerate.
• Full LODs added to all cosmetic characters & gear.
• Full LODs added to all 3P weapon and equipment assets.
• Full LODs added to all props in the world.
• All maps actor-merged.
• Large particle optimization pass, set proper render bounds, LODs and tick rates on all particle effects.
• Nativize most Unreal blueprints allowing them to run faster.
• Improved bot spawning timings for Checkpoint.
• Bullet projectiles now trace against lower LOD collision meshes.
• Vastly reduced triangle counts on many larger environment rock prop sets.
• Gunship and Support Helicopter rounds now use a simple collision trace.
• Changed player spawning, to spawn one player per tick instead of two players per tick.
• Improved material instances for various cosmetics.
• Reworked the bullet hit validation.
• Increased performance for player movement in water.
• Ensured character cosmetics are not being spawned multiple times per cosmetic slot.
• Characters now use data-only blueprints.
• Items no longer tick by default.
• Reduced the amount of times cosmetics spawn and despawn.
• Made weapons only tick when equipped.
• Interactable gear now use timers instead of tick functions.
• Allowed only certain crew member characters to tick in helicopters.
• Utilized texture atlases for certain cosmetic items to reduce draw calls.
• Doors and Supply Crates only tick when they are in an opening or closing transition.
• Destroyed prop vehicles will now extinguish their flames after 40 seconds so the fire/smoke particle doesn’t stay forever.

New Features

• Doors can now be breached by being kicked down.
• Added visual feedback system for Commanders, Observers and teammates to indicate where Fire Support is being called in and what type of Fire Support it is. Colored smoke appears on the target area.
  [list]
• Security
  [list]
• Gunship - Green
• Autocannon Strafe - Yellow
• Explosive Artillery - Red
• Smoke Artillery - Blue
• Minigun Support - Purple

New Content

• New maps “Crossing” and “Summit”
• New Greased Bolt upgrade option for bolt action rifles under the new “Chamber” upgrade category.
• Added Hoodie Camo cosmetic and variations.
• Added Leather variations.
• New optic rail for AK’s.
• New water explosion particles for artillery shells.
• Proper third person meshes for C4, IEDs and detonators.
• New bus model and textures.
• New music for the Loadout menu.

Gameplay Improvements

• Player Movement
  [list]
• Reworked character equipment weights which impact top sprint speed and stamina.
• Reduced top sprint speed for characters by 5% before weight and stamina based slowdowns are applied.
• Removed sprint speed increase for players when they were in a suppressed state.
• Slightly reduced standing movement speed.
• Reduced standing move backward speed.
• Decreased sliding speed.
• Increased slow walk speed.
• Increased slow crouch walk speed.
• Slightly increased jump height.
• Slightly increased vault radius.

Updated Content

• Animation
  [list]
• Updated animations and blending for character movement.
• Reworked ragdoll physics to use correct weight and limb rotation limits, resulting in more natural looking ragdolls on death.
• New animations for characters using bipods.
• New animations for characters using binoculars.

Fixes

• User Experience
  [list]
• Taglines now populate correctly into the player’s profile.

User Interface

• Penetration is now represented as “PP” (Penetration Power) instead of “Joules” in the Loadout menu.
• Rearranged the upgrade category order in the Loadout menu.
• Movement and vehicle controls can now be bound to the same key.
• Weapon in the Loadout menu can now be rotated slightly.
• Added generic Extended Magazine description.
• Added weapon selection icons for the GP25 Explosive and GP25 Smoke.
• Compass can now be toggled on and off in spectator mode.

Map Balance & Fixes

• Crossing
  [list]
• Actor merge pass.
• HLOD pass.