Game Update 04 Content Analysis

Hello Planetside Universe! In case you don't know me I'm Roy Awesome, leader of TEST Outfit of Mattherson. When I'm not playing PlanetSide I like to crunch through the files and find out exactly what changed in different patches. This article is the first of a series where I step through the files and break them down for you all to see. I originally wrote this article for the Reddit community, but Hamma has graciously allowed me to write these articles for PSU so I'll be hosting them here now.

GU4 had a metric crapton of changed files (Seriously, almost 7,000 changes), as well as a buttload of new, unreleased stuff for you all to see.

Note: I updated ps2ls to support multiple textures per model during this content analysis. Some of these screenshots look funky because they were taken before this change, and are the textures are just applied wrong.

Table of Contents

Released Content

GU4 Featured a brand new VR Training zone which reused many assets. A few, however, are new.



VRTraining Base



VRTraining Shooting Range

VRTraining Awning

Flash Shotgun

GU4 Also featured a large number of Flash additions, both released and Unreleased.

Unreleased Weapons

GU4 Featured a very large update to unreleased weapons. Some of these items are know to be coming, some are suprises.

NS Revolver 1

First up is the NS Revolver, the common pool heavy pistol teased in the last two Command Center episodes.

NS Revolver 2



The Revolver appears to be part of a 2-gun series. This looks kinda like the NC's scatter pistol from PS1



Empire Specific Launchers

The ESLs are broken down into multiple models which makes looking at them in their final form difficult. Each weapon has a Base, a Sight, and a Clip.

Phoenix Base Model

Phoenix Sight

Phoenix Ammo Clip

Striker Base Model

Striker Sight

Striker Ammo Clip

Lancer Base Model

Lancer Sight

Max Melee Weapons

These MAX Melee Weapons are all untextured. I had to find good looking textures for these to show off detail. They will look better when they get closer to release.

VS Max Sword

NC Max Hammer

TR Max BrassKnuckles

Max Grenade Launcher

Max Flamethrower

This has an updated mesh and texture. It looks like the portal gun now

Unreleased Flash Weapons

The Flash Shotgun isn't the only new gun we are getting for our lovable two man quadbike. Every single one of these weapons appear to be 'done', so we may see them soon.

Flash VS Rocket Launcher

Flash NC Rocket Launcher

Flash TR Rocket Launcher

Flash 30mm Gattling Gun

Flash PPA

MBT Artillery

SOE has started to work on Artillery cannons for the MBTs. We only have art for the Vanguard and Prowler so far. I think the Magrider is going to look pretty funny with a giant gun sticking out of the front.

Vanguard AP Artillery

Vanguard HE Artillery

Vanguard AT Artillery

Prowler AP Artillery

Prowler HE Artillery

Prowler AT Artillery

Prowler Quad Cannon

This guy has been in the files for a very long time, but got a massive overhaul to it's textures and mesh. Perhaps they are getting it ready for release?

Searhus Content

Searhus got some content updates this week, with new rocks, some textures, and tweaking to previous content. Searhus is still a ways out, so much of the content is work in progress and untextured.

Rocks 01

Rocks 02

Rocks 03

Grass 1

Grass 2

*There are a ton of updated textures and untextured models, check the imgur album posted below*

Hossin Content

Lots of updates this patch to Hossin. Many of them are texture and mesh updates. You may have seen this stuff before, but it's all been changed.

Spike Plants 1

Spike Plants 2

Hanging Flora 1

Hanging Flora 2

Fungus 1

Fungus 2

Blue Bulb Tree

Big Tree 1

This tree is larger than a biolab

Big Tree 2

Small Tree 1

Small Tree 2

Tree Husk 1

You can fit tanks through these

Tree Husk 2

Tree Husk 3

Rocks 1

Rocks 2

Rocks 3

Tech Demo

Brand new in this patch is an upcoming new continent called 'TechDemo'! It's an exciting new land that you will probably never see!

There are new trees though, and the look pretty cool:

Tech Demo Tree 1

Tech Demo Tree 2

Tech Demo Tree 3

There is is for a tech demo at GDC, which I'm going to and will try to find out more about and take some pictures of for you guys.

There is a ton of stuff not linked in this post. Check out the 80 image Imgur album for everything here.

Also, I'm working on the next release of ps2ls the program I use to extract this content out of the game files. If you work with C# and are interested in helping out with this project or just like reversing file formats, check us out:

The IRC channel is a good place to idle in as we do alot of file discovery in there, like the new Volumetric Fog system coming up (that we have no way of seeing... yet).

You can follow me on Twitter, @RoyAwesome. I tweet out little tidbits I find during the weeks in between Game Updates, as we are still figuring out file formats and getting them to draw. Thoughts on the new content? Hit up the comment thread here.

Until next time!