Escape From Tarkov 0.12.12 Official Patch Notes Revealed

This is a rare occurrence to see Battlestate Games reveal the complete patch notes for a major update, in this case, Escape From Tarkov’s patch 12.12. The patch will also wipe all the player data, which means everyone begins from scratch, just as noted in yesterday’s Newspaper Issue posted by BSG. But, that’s less valuable at this moment, since we have received the complete patch notes from the developer. So let’s see what is in there.

First and foremost, there are a couple of highlights that should be taken into consideration. There are a couple of game-changing features and mechanics added to the game. Some of them are the Player Inertia, The New Map, and VoIP, which will allow players to communicate via a proximity voice chat in-game. Did you want something exciting? You got it.

The game has also received a new type of AI. Namely, USEC PMCs that have gone ROGUE are now in control of the water treatment plant and are in possession of stationary machine guns and grenade launchers that are set up along the perimeter. Fighters are patrolling around and players will have a rough time passing through. The guards are always on high alert and any wrong move will result in a firefight. These new USEC AI are favoring their faction, and will not touch USEC players until they invade their territory, while the BEARs will have a rough time dealing with them. If a USEC and BEAR play together, they will also be considered hostile.

Overall, there are plenty of changes and I would encourage you to check all of them below. The number of features being added to the game that would contribute to much more realistic gameplay is abnormal. Overall, a pure 10 for Battlestate Games.

Escape From Tarkov 12.12 Patch Notes

Key changes:

1. Added the Lighthouse location. The lighthouse at Cape Dalniy was an important strategic object on the way to Tarkov. During Contract Wars, it was the main entry point for USEC units and served as their base of operations. After the conflict, Scavs took a fancy to this place, until the old owners returned, who decided to stay in Tarkov and establish their own order.

This is the first iteration of this location. In the future, the territory will be expanded and will include new Bosses.

2. The Lighthouse location will feature a new AI type – ex-USEC operatives, also called Rogues. They are a gang of former PMCs who previously operated together. They are well-armed, well trained, and use coordinated combat tactics. They have similar interests to the Raiders’ ones, but have united around a shared military past.

Rogue USECs have taken over the water treatment plant, and entrenched there. Stationary machine guns and grenade launchers are set up along the perimeter, with several fighters patrolling around the clock. When an enemy is detected in a sector of fire or there is a suspicion of enemy presence, the guards open suppressive fire, trying to prevent the enemy from approaching their territory.

These new bots are lenient towards the USEC PMC faction. They will not open fire upon a USEC player unless the player tries to enter their territory. If the player gets too close, he will receive an order to leave immediately and will be shot if not compliant. Also, if a USEC player is in a group with a BEAR PMC, both of them will be considered hostile and attacked on sight without a warning.

If a USEC player engages in a fight with the Rogues, he will be considered a traitor and will be treated as hostile for the next several raids.

3. Inertia has been added to the game for more realistic movement and actions. Inertia manifests itself in the following situations:

walking and strafing
sprinting
sharp turns during sprinting
landing after jumping or falling from a height
leaning and sidestepping

The inertial force depends on the weight of equipment and the Strength skill level. The more your equipment weighs and the lower the Strength skill level is:

the longer it takes to accelerate at the start of movement (walk, strafe, sprint);
the longer it takes to slow down after stopping movement (walk, strafe, sprint);
the longer it takes to slow down and accelerate when changing movement direction to the opposite one;
the more movement speed decreases during sharp turns while sprinting;
the stronger and longer movement speed decreases when landing after jumping or falling from a height;
the slower it takes to lean, return to normal position from leaning, and sidestep.

The inertial force increases starting from 0 kg of equipment weight for characters with Strength level 0, and from 10 kg for characters with the Elite Strength level. The inertial force reaches maximum with 70 kg of equipment weight for characters with Strength level 0, and with 80 kg for characters with the Elite Strength level.

4. Expanded crouching and getting up mechanics. Now the duration of these actions depends on the degree of weight overload. Getting up drains stamina, the amount of spent stamina depends on the degree of overload and the number of changed stance bars (how high the character stood up).

5. Expanded the weapon malfunctions mechanics. Along with misfires, weapons can now suffer the following malfunctions:

Failure to eject – after firing, the cartridge is jammed by the bolt and is partially visible in the ejection port. The source of this problem is, first of all, the technical condition of the weapon, and less often – the overheating of the weapon and the cartridge characteristics.
Failure to feed – after firing, there are issues with the new cartridge feed (round gets stuck in the mechanisms of the weapon, cartridge case, etc.). The main source of this problem is the weapon magazine, especially the high capacity and drum magazines. Other sources: cartridge characteristics, weapon overheating, and technical condition of the weapon.
Jammed bolt – after firing, the bolt gets jammed. Jamming can be of two types: normal and hard. The only difference is the duration of the troubleshooting. The cause of the jammed bolt can only be overheating of the weapon or its technical condition. Hard jamming occurs only at low values of the technical condition of the weapon (5% and below).

Malfunctions cannot occur in new weapons (with durability more than 93%), except malfunctions caused by overheating.

Some types of weapons cannot have certain malfunctions due to their design or mechanism of operation.

Now, in order to fix the malfunction, you need to determine its type first. To do this, you need to inspect the malfunctioning weapon via the weapon inspection hotkey.

Characters with the Elite level of the Troubleshooting skill will automatically detect the type of malfunction as soon as it occurs, without having to inspect the weapon.

Now, after events and actions related to malfunctions (malfunction occurrence, determining the type of a malfunction, fixing a malfunction), a colored notification occurs and a sound signal is played. These notifications and sounds can be disabled in the game settings by unchecking the “Malfunction notifications” box.

6. Weapon overheating and related effects have been added to the game.

Weapons heat up after each shot. The heating rate for each shot depends on the cartridge, barrel and other heating-related elements of the weapon (receivers, muzzle devices, handguards, etc.).

In contrast to heating, the weapon is constantly cooling down. The cooling rate also depends on the barrel and other cooling-related elements of the weapon (receivers, muzzle devices, handguards, etc.).

The degree of overheating can be monitored by the visual state of the barrel and muzzle devices. You can distinguish four stages of overheating in ascending order. Each stage of overheating adds new negative effects.

slight overheating – the weapon is heated, but there is no reddening of the barrel and muzzle devices. Effects: heating of the barrel, muzzle devices, and handguard is visible in thermal scopes, possible mirage (heat haze) from the barrel and muzzle devices.
medium overheating – the weapon is heated, reddening of the barrel and muzzle devices is visible. Effects: weapon’s accuracy decreases, malfunction chance increases, wear increases, and the weapon’s maximum durability is reduced during firing.
severe overheating – the weapon is very hot, the barrel and muzzle devices are sizzling hot. Effects: weapon’s rate of fire changes, possible cooking-off chance.
maximum overheating – when this level is reached, a malfunction occurs – the bolt gets jammed.

7. Improved the mechanics of external ammo ballistics. Now, when calculating the flight trajectory and energy, the initial speed, bullet weight, bullet diameter, its shape and ballistic coefficient are taken into account. Previously, only the initial velocity and bullet weight were taken into account.

With this, it became possible to achieve maximum correspondence with real-life data. Also, the loss of all types of damage, depending on the energy of the bullet at a distance, and the increase in damage and penetration of the bullet from the change in bullet velocity have been corrected. For example, for 5.45×39 at a distance of 150 meters, the drop in damage was about 20%, but when changing the barrel for a longer one, thus increasing the velocity, the damage and penetrative abilities also increase. However, it’s worth understanding that for some ammunition there is no data in open sources, or they are incomplete. Such ammunition will be adjusted as the necessary data is found.

8. Adjusted the recoil mechanics when shooting:

reduced the automatic recoil compensation when firing long bursts
decreased the recoil reduction bonuses from skills
general refinements and improvements in the weapon recoil system

9. VOIP – added voice communication functionality. To enable it, you need to go to the sound settings and check the “Enable VOIP” box.

This functionality is designed for coordination and the ability to negotiate.

Remember that using VOIP inappropriately can ruin the experience for you and other players.

Insults, playing music, clogging the air, and other improper behavior when using VOIP can lead to both the blocking of its functionality and the banning of the game account.

VOIP works only in-raid and only in the Push-to-talk mode.
Players cannot talk for more than 15 seconds consecutively. This means that every 20 seconds in a raid, you can only talk for 15 seconds, regardless of whether it’s consecutive or not.
Pressing the Push-to-talk button too often will trigger a short-term auto-block.
You can send reports on inappropriate VOIP usage. To do this, go to the gesture menu and press the report button while the other player is talking or was talking 2 seconds ago. You cannot report the members of your group.
The audibility of the voice depends on the distance of the speaker, as well as on all other sound modifiers: room partitions, floors, walls, active headphones, lowered visor, etc.
Scavs can pay attention to players talking.
VOIP can be quickly disabled from the gesture menu or via the hotkey.
The Push-to-talk hotkey can be reassigned in control settings.

10. Expanded the Operational Tasks

Added the description variety to all types of operational tasks.
Added the completed operational tasks statistics to the player stats screen.
Added the “exit through the specific extract” condition for the “exit the location” type tasks.

11. Added the ability to partially use different types of food and drinks.

Only the duration of the effect changes from the amount consumed. The strength and delay before the start of the buff does not change.
All buffs stack only up to the original buff’s value.
Negative buffs also stack only up to their original value.
Negative buffs take skills into account (in particular, the Metabolism skill, which cuts the duration of negative effects up to 50%).
Negative buffs take immunity at the maximum Metabolism skill level into account.
12. Added new items:
New weapons
New weapon parts
4 new hand grenades (including impact grenades)
New equipment
New barter items
New keys
New storage cases (Injector case and Keycard holder)
Rangefinders (handheld range finder and tactical rangefinder module)
5 new cartridges
New clothing sets for USEC and BEAR
New unique armbands
New face types for both factions at the start of the game

13. Added new quests on the Lighthouse location

Graphics changes and optimizations

1.Screen Space Reflection – a reflection effect from wet or glossy surfaces, water surface. The technology has been completely redesigned – now the reflections look more realistic, while the load on the system is noticeably reduced.

2. Added optimization for vegetation rendering at long distances. This allowed us to significantly reduce the CPU load in locations with a large number of trees and other vegetation.

3. Added optimization of physical collision objects.

4. Added various server optimizations.

5. SSR is now enabled by default in High and Ultra graphics presets.

6. Reduced the desaturation effect during rain, the picture is now more vivid.

List of fixes:

1. Fixed an issue where trader restock times were not updated until the client was restarted.

2. Fixed an issue when moving the flashlight on the weapon to another slot, an endless charge of the cartridge into the chamber could occur.

3. Fixed an issue that caused Error 500 when interacting with the in-game location map item after it was insured.

4. Fixed an issue that resulted in insufficient lighting in the Hideout.

5. Fixed an issue where bots could shoot through walls on the Factory location.

6. Fixed an issue with weapon inspect animation of Saiga-12 and SVDS.

7. Fixed an issue of overlapping sounds on the stairs of the 3-story dorm on the Customs location.

8. Fixed an issue where bots could instantly move to a crouched position.

9. Fixed an issue where it was impossible to create a stack of currency or cartridges from 10 pieces.

10. Fixed an issue where the player can open a locked door without a key using the Breach option from around the corner.

11. Fixed an issue where a player could move from a prone position to a standing position in inaccessible places, if they change their stance during weapon chamber-loading.

12. Fixed an issue where the water filter resource could continue decreasing after the end of the purified water production.

13. Fixed an issue where an expiring offer at Flea Market disappeared from the “My offers” section when it was extended at 00:00.

14. Fixed an issue where the eye protection effect from the “Gorilla” welding mask was not counted.

15. Fixed an issue where the stationary running animation played when leaning in a prone position.

16. Fixed an issue where the Flea Market search showed only one part when buying parts for assembly with two or more of the same modifications.

17. Fixed an issue where a trader’s restock timer could disappear after the timer ended.

18. Fixed an issue where the introductory message did not appear when entering the Hideout for the first time.

19. Fixed an issue where more bots spawned in offline mode than needed.

20. Fixed an issue where the BEAR Oldschool pants could disappear.

21. Fixed an issue where a stretched polygon could appear in the Hideout’s shooting range.

22. Fixed an issue where Glukhar’s guard bot would not shoot at a player even when still having ammo remaining.

23. Fixed an issue where the first examined weapon on the enemy’s body was displayed as completely broken.

24. Fixed a visual discrepancy of the progress indicator of loading/unloading cartridges in the magazine.

25. Fixed an issue where a click sound could be played after a series of shots from a silenced rifle.

26. Fixed an issue where the level of operational tasks was saved after a profile reset.

27. Fixed an issue where the sound of opening a door with a key in the Health Resort could be heard on any floor.

28. Fixed an issue where the consumption of hand stamina did not increase when the level of hydration decreased.

29. Fixed various audio issues related to sound overlapping.

30. Fixed various issues causing error 228.

31. Fixed various issues causing game crashes.

Various fixes:

Adjusted (and also improved) the characteristics of some weapons.

Removed the ability to quick-throw grenades. Now, when you press the hotkey, your character will take a random grenade into his hands from your chest rig or pockets.

Adjusted and added new crafting recipes for the Hideout.

Changed the conditions for unlocking Hideout zones.

All keys now have durability (100 units, except for the keys that already had durability).

Changed the starting gear for bots and Player Scavs.

Various balancing changes to rarity and spawn locations for items.

Changes and fixes to logic and parameters of various weapon attachments.

Various changes in the traders’ range of items.

Many localization fixes and improvements.

Balancing changes to task rewards.

Specific items can no longer be put up and purchased on the Flea Market: