The virus is loose across the Bay Area. Flashpoints are erupting across the peninsula as entire districts fall into chaos and infected swarms push deeper into civilian zones.
CERC forces are already in the field.
Embedded military reporters and frontline operators are transmitting battlefield coverage directly from active operations. The images you are about to see were captured during recent combat deployments across the region.
These transmissions come directly from the front.
The battle for the Bay Area has begun.
2026.5.30.6 Change list:
Major Gameplay Updates
Civilian Intake, Migration, and Bus Behavior
Updated Intake Bus behavior so buses in zones set to WalkOnly will no longer assist with Intake. They will only help zones that are comparable with their transit method .
Added Bus Waystation support. Intake buses and Civilians will now prefer these Waystations in the target zone when one exists. They will always use the closest point
Added behavior for civilians walking to Intake to move toward a Waystation instead of relying only on bus drop-off behavior. To allow players control of where Mobs first "gather" to be sorted into World Buildings or active intake.
Updated Intake Buses so they can assist with interzone Migration when Intake is enabled in their home zone but no civilians remain there.
Improved Intake Bus movement logic to reduce cases where buses stop too far away from buildings.
Improved stuck case handling for Intake Buses.
Updated Intake Bus behavior states so their current behavior is clearer in the Details Panel.
Intake Buses now automatically activate Pause after reaching base when ordered to Return to Base.
Fixed passive Civilian Migration not properly updating buildings when civilians arrived.
Added Bus Waystation assets. (W.i.P)
Gates, Door Modes, and Access Control
Gates support a new mode called No Buses/Mob mode which allows you greater control over how Busses/Mobs enter/leave your bases.
Updated the tooltip for No Civilian Mode:
“Will open for nearby military units, and close when no military units are near. Ignores civilians and evacuation buses. Use this to create private military entrances or control civilian movement lanes.”
Gates using No Mob/Bus Entry mode now block Mobs and Buses from opening them when they pass nearby.
DNA, Infection, and Martial Law Balance
DNA can now drop from dead enemies.
Scientists can now gather DNA passively by walking over it.
Fixed DNA sometimes spawning in the air.
DNA can no longer spawn on water.
Lowered DNA spawn rates by 50 percent across the board.
Lowered Infection drop chances across the board to better balance against the amount of Infection that can normally spawn.
Lowered Partial Martial Law and Full Martial Law effects so they now reduce Infection rate only up to 10 percent and 20 percent maximum.
Updated tooltips to show the new chance values for Partial Martial Law and Full Martial Law.
World Building and Zone Systems
Fixed World Buildings not displaying their proper information on clients sometimes
Fixed a desync where World Building icon states could desync between host/clients
Added total upkeep display to Staffing Display widgets.
Added upkeep cost per staff member and current total upkeep cost to hover tips.
Added maximum height support to some Staffing Display widgets so zones with many copies of the same facility no longer cause the widget to scale infinitely.
Fixed World Building icons glowing while night vision is active.
World Buildings order text no longer bleeds out of the box
Improved some World Building exit/entrance points to make them more reliable for mobs
Adjusted World Building window emissive color from white to a warmer yellow tone to make nighttime more vibrant
Added a lighting pass to all active maps as a whole similar to legacy
UI and Input Improvements
Updated the Travel Mode button on the Admin Widget with a more detailed tooltip that better reflects the new behavior.
Set the Exit Keyboard Rotation Mode hint on the ConstructionControlsWidget to highlight red when visible.
Updated the population meter on the RTS HUD to retry until it successfully receives GameState at least once. This prevents laggy clients from missing initialization.
Adjusted the Zone Management List so it is better guarded against going off the left side of the screen when opening or responding to viewport resize.
Added a Hint Popup for landscape and World Building brush mode.
While in brush mode, Shift must now be held to scale brush size. This allows normal zooming when Shift is not held.
Made the player mouse brush size consistent between landscape and World Building order brushes.
Brush size is now saved and loaded per file.
Fixed move previews not clearing when a unit died.
Fixed custom signs not accepting written text.
Fixed a visual bug where 3D resolution sometimes failed to initialize.
AI, Movement, and Orders
Improved Attack Move, Patrol, and Guard responsiveness.
Applied a vehicle movement optimization related to how often vehicles can recheck movement within a fixed period. Improved performance in mid-late game with vehicle heavy sessions.
Fixed moving and relaxed Boolean rules in the animation graph.
Fixed idle state behavior on RTS units.
Fixed vehicles getting stuck on DNA drops.
Fixed ground vehicles blocking other vehicles and Juggernauts after death.
Added Join and Leave messages.
Garrisons and Evacuation
Added a quick fix preventing players from right clicking to force uncontrollable units, such as Civilian Facility Staff, into nearby garrisons.
Fixed a flaw in RefreshGarrisonSlotsUsed() that could allow garrisons to exceed capacity in some cases.
Fixed garrison capacity checks not accounting for modifiers. This resolves civilians failing to walk to Evacuation Helicopters that have boosted capacity through custom game settings.
Fixed Evacuation Helicopter metadata incorrectly giving it a population cost of 2.
Changed Evac site helipad colors to the proper Civilian Evac colors, matching the legacy setup.
Vehicles, Aircraft, and Visual Effects
Fixed Sparrow sometimes falling through the map on death
Updated VehicleUnitComponent death effects to disable BlurAmount so helicopter rotors do not remain blurry after death.
Fixed Osprey material colors.
Updated Render Light Scale support for Light Components.
Added missing Water VT Volumes to the DeadSignal master.
Stability and Networking Fixes
Fixed a save crash related to client groups.
Added a speculative fix for a client World Building desync bug.
Added a safety pass for Vision Grid. More data is now copied into safe thread read snapshots to reduce or eliminate remaining Vision Grid crashes.
Fixed a LightManagerComponent warning and crash issue.
Added a speculative crash fix for a reported Discord crash case.
Audio, Characters, and Art Cleanup
Added HK fire sounds.
Fixed bugged eyes on female civilians.
Fixed Osprey material colors.
Cheats and Debug
Fixed Infinite Ammo, Infinite Gas, and related cheat menu options not always applying correctly when selected from the hub.
Cheat effects now properly apply beyond only the units that existed at the moment the setting was switched.
Summary
Update Highlights
Buses and civilian Intake systems received a major behavior pass, including better WalkOnly zone handling, Waystation support, improved Migration behavior, and fewer stuck cases.
Gates and Door Modes now behave more reliably, especially for military only access and No Mob/Bus Entry rules.
DNA and Infection balance has been adjusted, with lower DNA spawn rates, safer spawn locations, and passive scientist collection.
World Building client state handling was improved to reduce desyncs, especially for laggy clients.
Several UI panels received polish, including World Building details, staffing displays, population meter initialization, brush controls, and construction hints.
Multiple crash and stability fixes were added across save handling, Vision Grid, LightManagerComponent, and World Building replication.
Vehicle, aircraft, and visual cleanup fixes were added, including helicopter rotor blur cleanup, Osprey material fixes, Sparrow collision updates, and ground vehicle death blocking fixes.
The Next 60 Days of Cepheus Protocol...
Civilian Evacuation is now playable from start to finish, and today’s update is focused on hotfixes, cleanup, and what comes next for the Rebuild.
If you missed yesterday’s post covering one of the biggest updates to ever touch the Cepheus Protocol Rebuild, you can read it here: [dynamiclink href="https://steamcommunity.com/games/979640/announcements/detail/525374254465680188"]CERC HQ EP 91 Summary:
The evacuation system just hit a major milestone. For the first time, players can now play through the entire civilian rescue loop from beginning to end. This includes fully functional intake processing, evacuation buses, infection scanning upgrades, doctrine progression, and direct civilian movement into evacuation zones.
New doctrine upgrades now let you streamline processing, skip holding cells, and massively improve evacuation efficiency as your operation grows.
The infected are also getting a major overhaul. Infection spread has been rebalanced, structure construction is now visible before activation, and the late game is being tuned to reduce the frustrating “whack-a-mole” pressure players were running into. Endless Horde Mode is now available as a custom option for players who want the infection to spread forever.
Vehicle pathfinding, helicopters, gates, airstrikes, radio systems, and multiplayer syncing all received major fixes this week. The team also reworked a large number of save/load issues, improved performance for large sessions, and added better RTS management tools for handling evacuation zones and civilian flow.
Next up is a full push on formation AI, infected intelligence, new infected variants, infected lieutenants(Her Operators), Infected Leviathan (Late game super unit), Operator improvements, and the massive San Francisco North map expansion.
The goal over the next 60 days is to push every major gameplay system far beyond what existed ever before.
You can catch up on the latest CERC HQ below if you want to see the full breakdown for yourself:
[dynamiclink href="https://youtu.be/NC6z4-1UEB0"]
The Next 60 Days
Over the next 30 to 60 days, the focus is pushing every major gameplay system forward beyond what existed before in the original build.
Civilian Evacuation polish and bug fixing
Formation AI improvements
Infected intelligence improvements
New infected variants
Lieutenants and late-game infected progression
Leviathan progression
Operator improvements
San Francisco North expansion work
RTS control improvements
Save/load and multiplayer stability improvements
Civilian Evacuation Progress
The evacuation system has reached a major gameplay milestone. Players can now complete the full civilian rescue loop from intake to evacuation, with supporting systems now coming online around it.
Functional intake processing
Evacuation buses
Infection scanning upgrades
Doctrine progression
Direct civilian movement into evacuation zones
Upgrades to streamline civilian processing
Options to skip holding cells
Improved evacuation efficiency as your operation grows
Infected Rework
The infected are also receiving a major pass as part of this phase of development. Infection spread has been rebalanced, infected structure construction is now visible before activation, and late-game pressure is being tuned to reduce the frustrating “whack-a-mole” feeling players were running into. Endless Horde Mode is also available as a custom option for players who want the infection to keep spreading forever.
What Comes Next
The next major push is about taking the systems now coming online and making them stronger, smarter, and more stable. Expect continued work on formation AI, infected behavior, new infected threats, Operator improvements, San Francisco North, evacuation polish, and the broader late-game progression loop. As always, Experimental builds may contain rough edges, bugs, and unfinished content. Player reports are extremely helpful as these systems continue moving toward the default branch.
🎙️ Next CERC HQ – Livestream Details
🕔 When: Weekly Saturdays – 7 PM EST (New Time!)
💬 What is CERC HQ:
Welcome to Cepheus Protocol HQ, your ultimate weekly briefing on all things Cepheus Protocol! Join the Halcyon Winds team as we explore the latest updates, reveal behind-the-scenes development stories, and answer community questions about the game. From exciting new features to design challenges, this is your all-access pass to the evolving world of Cepheus Protocol. Tune in every week and stay ahead of the outbreak!
Co-op Progress
Total Revamp based on Community Feedback
Level Design Updates
📺 Where to Watch:
🎤 Don’t miss our Live Q&A! We’ll be answering questions from the community during the stream.
📺 Missed a Stream? No Worries!
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