Season 03: Plaguefall

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The Rivals have been pushed back for the moment, but only just in time for a brand new threat to rear its ugly head. An insidious lithophage, a sickness of the very rock beneath our feet, has struck Hoxxes.
Nicknamed the ROCKPOX, this planetary pathogen is spreading through the caves, infecting the rock and even directly affecting the local fauna. Even the hardy Dwarves can feel its insidious grasp.
Prepare for **PLAGUEFALL**!
With Love,

**Season 03: Plaguefall** was released on November 3rd, 2022 for PC and November 17th for the console.

## URGENT COMPANY BRIEFING

Alright, Miners, butts in seats. I’m afraid there’s bad news again.
The Rivals have been pushed back for the moment, but only just in time for a brand new threat to rear its ugly head. An insidious lithophage, a sickness of the very rock beneath our feet, has struck Hoxxes.
A rogue comet is passing through the system, shedding hundreds of infected meteoroids as the gravitational forces tear it apart. So far, every single one has carried with it a dormant form of Rockpox, and each one represents a clear and present danger to the Hoxxian ecosystem. ROCKPOX is upon us, and if we intend to continue operations here we have our work cut out for us. Management, as always, has a plan, and, as always, this plan involves you, our dear employees.
Our mission will be two-fold: Firstly, we need to prevent the infection from spreading further, by striking directly at the meteors themselves, and the throbbing Plague Hearts they contain. Secondly, we need to get in there and eradicate any infection already in place, and strip the caves of every last trace of Rockpox.
Early reports show the infection causing terrible mutations in the local wildlife and overall environment. Take special care not to…touch anything. The Rockpox is a particularly vicious thing, and it will react with extreme hostility to anything that gets too close. R&D recommends keeping direct contact to an absolute minimum. The long-term effects could be …undesirable.
In short: Hoxxes is no longer a gentle walk in the park, Miners.
Management sends their regards.

## Update Changes

### New Event: Meteor Impact

A rogue comet is passing through the system, shedding hundreds of infected meteoroids as the gravitational forces tear it apart. So far, every single one has carried with it a dormant form of Rockpox, and each one represents a clear and present danger to the Hoxxian ecosystem.

Be on the alert for meteor strikes during your normal missions. If one happens during your mission, clear out the impact zone immediately, and get ready to get cracking. Powerful Rock Cracker modules will be sent in from the Space Rig to assist you. These must be hooked up to the meteorite and maintained while they crack it open so you can get at the Plague Hearts inside. But beware the noise is sure to attract the locals!

The hearts themselves are highly prized by the R&D department with a Scrip awarded at the season terminal for every 6 Plague Hearts you bring back.

### New Warning: Lithophage Outbreak

When you play a mission with a LITHOPHAGE OUTBREAK Warning you will encounter an area in which the Plague Hearts have grown into full Contagion Spikes, rapidly spreading across the cave.

All missions with this warning come with two main objectives:

* LITHOPHAGE OUTBREAK OBJECTIVE: First, you will need to destroy the Rockpox Contagion Spikes and the spreading corruption with R&D’s brand-new anti-contaminant tools. Be extra mindful of the creeping tide of Plague Larvae erupting from the infected area as you work, and be prepared for swarms of Glyphids that have already been struck by the Rockpox and seek to disrupt your endeavours.

* NORMAL MAIN OBJECTIVE: Second, you will still need to complete the normal mining objective. Fighting the Rockpox is critical, but it does not pay the bills! The order in which you tackle these tasks is entirely up to you.

**Cleansing Tools**

To help you deal with the Rockpox infection and neutralise the Contagion Spikes, R&D have whipped up some tools: the LithoFoamer and the LithoVac. Both will be needed to neutralise and cleanse an area affected by the Rockpox.

The process is quite simple:

* Step 1: Apply a generous coating of LithoFoam to Rockpox Blisters surrounding a Contagion Spike. The foam begins working on contact chemically bonding to the Rockpox while loosening the grip it has on the rock.
* Step 2: Use the LithoVac to suckup both the LithoFoam and any Rockpox it has bonded to.

Once enough of the surrounding Rockpox is cleared the Contagion Spike will collapse, taking any Rockpox remaining in the area with it.

### New Status Effect: Rockpox Infection and New Enemies: Lithophage Infection

As if it’s not bad enough that the Lithophage is devouring the very rock beneath your feet, once a Contagion Spike matures it begins to grow pulsating pods, filled with Rockpox Larvae!

**ROCKPOX LARVAE**

These squirmy little devils seek out victims en masse in an attempt to take them over. Shoot on sight and watch your backs. So far both Grunts and Praetorians having been sighted stumbling around covered in Rockpox growths.

**ROCKPOX INFECTED GRUNTS** AND **PRAETORIANS**

If you happen to come across a Rockpox Glyphid do not bother attacking it directly as the affected creatures can take a tremendous amount of damage and still keep going, we are not even sure if they are still really alive. However, if you aim for the glowing Rockpox boils covering their bodies, you can even take a Praetorian down in just a few shots.

### New Grenades

As has become par for the course, there will be plenty of incentive to do your part. First of those are another round of additions to your arsenal, this time in the shape of new throwables.

#### Voltaic Stun Sweeper

The Scout has gotten his hands on an Electric Boomerang that bounces from target to target, electrocuting anything hostile on the way. No mentions of shrimps or barbies, please.

#### Springloaded Ripper

The Driller has seen fit to repurpose one of his favorite power tools. He is now in possession of a motorised saw that powers along the ground and even up sheer walls, slicing and dicing anything it hits.

#### Shredder Swarm

The Engineer has worked closely with R&D, and they have successfully made a portable robotic swarm from captured and reprogrammed Shredder Drones. Throw it on the ground to activate your very own posse of hacked drones that attack anything hostile on sight.

#### Tactical Leadbuster

And the Gunner gets a grenade with a gun on it \* because of course it is. Throw and attach this device to any surface, and it will saturate the surrounding area with a blistering hail of lead.

### Season 03: Performance Pass

On top of all that, a brand new Performance Pass with another 100 levels of unlocks will be activated, alongside an all-new Cosmetic Tree loaded to the gills with Cosmetics.

This of course means Season 02 is coming to an end, so now is the time to get mining if you still have anything you are dying to unlock right away. That said - don’t fret, anything you’ve yet to unlock will simply be added to the ordinary loot pools in the game - nothing goes away.

### Gameplay Adjustments

#### Assignments

We have added mission variety to all recurring assignments such as the promotion assignments. This way you no longer need to do the same missions every time you promote. Additionally the Industrial Sabotage mission will now also be available for selection in assignments.

#### Cave Room Variations

As we continue our exploration of Hoxxes, it only makes sense that we get some new sights on occasion. You can expect to see dozens of new cave shapes on missions now, with a special emphasis on Point Extraction missions that have been sorely lacking for a while. Don’t get lost, now.

#### Rival Content

With Season 3 focusing on the Lithophage we have modified the various Rival Events, Rival Presence Warning and Industrial Sabotage Mission.

The Industrial Sabotage mission is now treated as any other mission, including a slightly more streamlined lower-complexity version now also available on the mission map and in Deep Dives. On top of this we have also tweaked the mission a bit:

* Reduced minimum time to hack a generator
* Increased Transmitter Node connection Range a bit

We have also tweaked the Rival Patrol Bots based on what we’ve been hearing on the grapevine.

* Reduced bot acceleration/deceleration a bit so the bots are now a little easier to track
* Reduced damage of burst shots
* Reduced damage of sniper shots
* Reduced the speed and manoeuvrability of the homing missiles
* While the patrol bots can't be frozen solid, "freezing" them will still make their metal brittle and impart the standard damage bonus applied to frozen enemies but with all those hot electronics inside they warm back up quite quickly
* Increased the amount of heat damage required to set Patrol Bots on fire

The Rival Presence Warning is now also part of the standard warning rotation and is no longer guaranteed to be present on the mission map at all times.

Lastly, the 3 RIVAL EVENTS have been added to the general event pool with probabilities similar to the other events. The Data Cells which you can get from these events no longer will grant you scrip or bonus Performance Points but instead will give Credits and XP similar to the Korlok Tyrant Shards.

### Weapon Tweaks

As usual R&D have found a bit of time to tune and tweak some of the weapons.

#### Experimental Plasma Charger

##### T5 Flying Nightmare upgrade

* Removed the damage bonus
* Converted a large part of charged shot damage to fire damage
* Increased the radius penalty slightly
* Merged the T5 upgrade Hot Plasma into this upgrade
* Renamed to Burning Nightmare

##### New T5 Plasma Splash upgrade

* Normal shots have some of their damage changed from direct to area damage

#### Deepcore GK2

* Increased the base weapon damage (from 15 to 16)
* Removed the base Weakpoint Bonus
* Increased base magazine size (from 25 to 30)
* Adjusted base ammo to match new mag size
* Added a new Reload Speed Upgrade to T1
* Increased the T2 Ammo upgrade bonus (from 100 to 120)
* Increased the bonus of the T2 damage upgrade (from 2 to 3)
* Removed the T3 damage upgrade
* Moved T4 RoF Upgrade to T5
* Moved T5 Stun upgrade to T4

##### Electrifying Reload OC

* Adjusted the magazine and ammo penalty to match the new base
* Increased up the damage of the electrocution effect
* Made it do a bit of extra electric damage for every bullet that is in the enemy when you trigger the effect

##### Bullets of Mercy OC

* Increased the magazine size penalty to match the new larger base magazine size
* Increased the damage bonus

##### AI Stability Engine OC

* Reduced damage penalty from -2 to -1
* Reduced WP bonus slightly

#### M1000 Classic

##### Electrocuting Focus Shot OC

* Increased the damage and duration of the electrocution effect

##### Supercooling Chamber OC

* Increased focus damage bonus
* Added a large focus weakpoint bonus multiplier
* Added a magazine size penalty
* Reduced the ammo penalty slightly

#### Subata 120

* Tier 5 Mactera Toxin-Coating upgrade now adds corrosive damage. Changed name to Acid-Coated Bullets.

#### Zhukov NUK17

##### Gas Recycling OC

* Added a significant Armour Breaking bonus

### Community Requests

* New shouts on the Laserpointer
* Added an extra Loadout Slot in the Equipment Terminal
* Adde a Miner’s Manual Terminal in each of the cabins on the Space Rig
* Implemented Local Blacklists on Steam: We have now added the ability to block specific players from your games. If you encounter a player who for some reason you never want to play with again, you can go into the kick menu in-game and click the “Ban” button. This will kick the specific player from your game and also send you to their steam profile, from where you can choose to block all communication. Doing this will prevent that player from joining any games that you host.