Tag Archives: ‘weapons’

Lots of changes are being made to Destiny 2 this week, including returning weapons, Vault of Glass Master Difficulty and the Solstice of Heroes.

That’s without mentioning the weapon balance changes being made to several items, including the shotgun.

A message from Bungie explains: “Shotguns are very dominant in PvP by any measure, and don’t allow much counterplay with Primary weapons, particularly close-range Primaries like Sidearms and SMGs.

“We see frequent player feedback about their prevalence in PvP activities and how they make it difficult to use various weapon archetypes that otherwise feel good against players without Shotguns.

“We want them to excel in a narrower niche than they do currently, so this change aims to retain the reliable one-hit elimination, but at closer range, and push them to be slightly rangier than currently at getting two-hit eliminations. As with our intent for all Special weapons, if a player is caught out of position with a Shotgun, they should be at a clear disadvantage.”

We also have early patch notes that have been shared before today, which covers all the technical changes being made behind the scenes.

One of the hot ticket items is the start of the Solstice of Heroes, which is scheduled to begin after today’s maintenance and Weekly Reset.

A new post from the Bungie support team confirms that today’s new Destiny 2 update will be available to download at 6pm BST.

For gamers in the United States, the Destiny 2 update time has been set for 10am PDT on July 6.

This is also the time that the Solstice of Heroes will begin, with the event open to all Guardians, no matter what expansions you own.

Solstice of Heroes is a limited-time event that celebrates the achievements of Guardians in the fourth year of Destiny 2.

This will mean collecting Heroes Armour sets by finding Solstice Key Fragments that can be used to unlock Solstice Packages to earn armour, weapons, materials, Solstice gear, and rerolls of the new Compass Rose Shotgun.

These will be available to find in EAZ, a three-player matchmade activity that tasks players with navigating a floating island off the European Dead Zone to defeat bosses and loot caches for Solstice Packages and Solstice Key Fragments. The more bosses you defeat, the more caches you’ll earn.

This armour can also be upgraded over time by completing objectives and earning access to new Armor Accelerants from Eva.

Armor Accelerants increase the progress made towards future Solstice armour objectives for the duration of the event, allowing sets to be completed faster for subsequent characters of different classes. Currently active Armor Accelerants can be viewed in Eva’s vendor screen.

Bungie has also promised that weapons will be returning to the Destiny 2 roster on July 6.

The remaining Moon and Dreaming City weapons with new perks will be made available today’s Destiny patch is available to install.

All of these weapons will drop from their original sources on their respective destination, including the following highlights:

Tigerspite
Twilight Oath
Abide the Return

Early patch notes for today’s Destiny 2 update can be found below:

Expunge

Styx
Tartarus

Fixed an issue where a Codestrider platform would fail to have collision in certain circumstances.
Fixed an issue where defeating the boss before the second immunity phase would block mission completion.

Strikes

The Inverted Spire

Momentum Control

Gameplay

Fixed an issue in which Slow duration from Withering Blade did not increase with Whisper of Durance Fragment equipped.
Fixed an issue in which Stormcaller Warlocks were unable to use Ionic Blink while slowed by Stasis.
Fixed an issue in which Diamond Lance could be generated by throwing a Glacier Grenade into a pile of Telesto projectiles.
Fixed a few bugs in which abilities were not properly costing Sentinel Shield energy when guarding (Celestial Fire, Withering Blade, Shiver Strike, Glacial Quake, Silence & Squall).

Author: Gary Jones
Read more here >>> Daily Express

California Assault Weapons Ban Overturned by Federal Judge

June 5, 2021 Newslanes Media Leave a comment

A federal judge in California on Friday overturned the state’s three-decade-old ban on assault weapons, which he called a “failed experiment,” prompting a sharp retort from the state’s governor.

California prohibited the sale of assault weapons in 1989. The law was challenged in a suit filed in 2019 against the state’s attorney general by plaintiffs including James Miller, a California resident, and the San Diego County Gun Owners, a political action committee.

The judge, Roger T. Benitez of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, wrote that sections of the state’s penal code that defined assault weapons and restricted their use were “hereby declared unconstitutional and shall be enjoined.”

But the judge said he had granted a 30-day stay of the ruling at the request of Attorney General Rob Bonta, a move that would allow Mr. Bonta to appeal it.

Judge Benitez wrote that the case was about “what should be a muscular constitutional right and whether a state can force a gun policy choice that impinges on that right with a 30-year-old failed experiment.”

“It should be an easy question and answer,” Judge Benitez, who was nominated by former President George W. Bush, continued. “Government is not free to impose its own new policy choices on American citizens where constitutional rights are concerned.”

The judge wrote that the firearms banned under the state’s law were not “bazookas, howitzers or machine guns,” but rather “fairly ordinary, popular, modern rifles.”

In a statement late Friday, Gov. Gavin Newsom called the ruling “a direct threat to public safety and the lives of innocent Californians.”

Mr. Newsom also criticized the opening lines of Judge Benitez’s decision, in which he wrote that, like a Swiss Army knife, the AR-15 assault rifle “is a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment.”

The AR-15 re-entered the American gun market in 2004 after the end of a federal assault weapons ban. It has a national following among gun owners, but it has also been used in mass shootings and vilified by its critics as a weapon of mass murder.

Mr. Newsom wrote that comparing the gun to a Swiss Army knife “completely undermines the credibility of this decision and is a slap in the face to the families who’ve lost loved ones to this weapon.”

In a separate statement, Mr. Bonta called Judge Benitez’s decision “fundamentally flawed” and vowed to appeal it.

“There is no sound basis in law, fact or common sense for equating assault rifles with Swiss Army knives — especially on Gun Violence Awareness Day and after the recent shootings in our own California communities,” he said.

Gun rights activists celebrated.

Brandon Combs, the president of the Firearms Policy Coalition, a group in Sacramento that helped bring the lawsuit to court, said in a statement that the ruling “held what millions of Americans already know to be true: Bans on so-called ‘assault weapons’ are unconstitutional and cannot stand.”

Alan M. Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, another group that was involved in the lawsuit, said in a statement that the judge’s ruling had “shredded California gun control laws regarding modern semiautomatic rifles.”

“It is clear the judge did his homework on this ruling, and we are delighted with the outcome,” added Mr. Gottlieb, whose group is based in Washington State.

Judge Benitez was appointed as a district court judge in 2003 and confirmed by the Senate the following year.

In 2017, he blocked a new California law that would have banned magazines of more than 10 rounds. A three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld his ruling last year in a split decision, but the appeals court said in February that an 11-judge panel would rehear the case.

Some critics of the judge’s latest ruling, including Anthony Rendon, the speaker of the California Assembly, noted an irony: It was handed down on National Gun Violence Awareness Day, an annual project organized by groups that advocate for tougher gun laws.

The ruling is “alarming and wrong,” said Ari Freilich, the state policy director at the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a group led by Gabrielle Giffords, the former representative from Arizona who was shot a decade ago. “It’s also an insult to families across the nation, on today of all days, who have seen in the most painful way possible how dangerous and deadly assault weapons are.”

Michael Levenson, Thomas Fuller and Shawn Hubler contributed reporting.

Author: Mike Ives
This post originally appeared on NYT > U.S. News

Business

The Pentagon Inches Toward Letting AI Control Weapons

May 10, 2021 Newslanes Media Leave a comment

Last August, several dozen military drones and tank-like robots took to the skies and roads 40 miles south of Seattle. Their mission: Find terrorists suspected of hiding among several buildings.

So many robots were involved in the operation that no human operator could keep a close eye on all of them. So they were given instructions to find—and eliminate—enemy combatants when necessary.

The mission was just an exercise, organized by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a blue-sky research division of the Pentagon; the robots were armed with nothing more lethal than radio transmitters designed to simulate interactions with both friendly and enemy robots.

The drill was one of several conducted last summer to test how artificial intelligence could help expand the use of automation in military systems, including in scenarios that are too complex and fast-moving for humans to make every critical decision. The demonstrations also reflect a subtle shift in the Pentagon’s thinking about autonomous weapons, as it becomes clearer that machines can outperform humans at parsing complex situations or operating at high speed.

US Army Futures Command General John Murray told an audience at the US Military Academy last month that swarms of robots will force military planners, policymakers, and society to think about whether a person should make every decision about using lethal force in new autonomous systems. “Is it within a human’s ability to pick out which ones have to be engaged,” and then make 100 individual decisions, Murray asked. “Is it even necessary to have a human in the loop?”

Other comments from military commanders suggest interest in giving autonomous weapons systems more agency. At a conference on AI in the Air Force last week, Michael Kanaan, director of operations for the Air Force Artificial Intelligence Accelerator at MIT and a leading voice on AI within the US military, said thinking is evolving. He says AI should perform more identifying and distinguishing potential targets while humans make high-level decisions. “I think that’s where we’re going,” Kanaan says.

At the same event, Lieutenant General Clinton Hinote, deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration, and requirements at the Pentagon, says that whether a person can be removed from the loop of a lethal autonomous system is “one of the most interesting debates that is coming, [and] has not been settled yet.”

This May, a report from the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI), an advisory group created by Congress, recommended, among other things, that the US resist calls for an international ban on the development of autonomous weapons.

Timothy Chung, the DARPA program manager in charge of the swarming project, says last summer’s exercises were designed to explore when a human drone operator should, and should not, make decisions for the autonomous systems. For example, when faced with attacks on several fronts, human control can sometimes get in the way of a mission because people are unable to react quickly enough. “Actually, the systems can do better from not having someone intervene,” Chung says.

The drones and the wheeled robots, each about the size of a large backpack, were given an overall objective, then tapped AI algorithms to devise a plan to achieve it. Some of them surrounded buildings while others carried out surveillance sweeps. A few were destroyed by simulated explosives; some identified beacons representing enemy combatants and chose to attack.

The US and other nations have used autonomy in weapons systems for decades. Some missiles can, for instance, autonomously identify and attack enemies within a given area. But rapid advances in AI algorithms will change how the military uses such systems. Off-the-shelf AI code capable of controlling robots and identifying landmarks and targets, often with high reliability, will make it possible to deploy more systems in a wider range of situations.

But as the drone demonstrations highlight, more widespread use of AI will sometimes make it more difficult to keep a human in the loop. This might prove problematic, because AI technology can harbor biases or behave unpredictably. A vision algorithm trained to recognize a particular uniform might mistakenly target someone wearing similar clothing. Chung says the swarm project presumes that AI algorithms will improve to a point where they can identify enemies with enough reliability to be trusted.

Author: Will Knight
This post originally appeared on Business Latest

Gaming

Warzone patch notes today: Call of Duty update 1.36 includes Season 3 weapons drop

April 22, 2021 Newslanes Media Leave a comment

Author
This post originally appeared on Daily Express :: Gaming Feed

UPDATE: Call of Duty Warzone Season 3 patch notes can be found at the bottom of this article and include a big list of changes for the game’s most popular weapons.

Not much has been shared about the new Verdansk map, however, gamers can get a first look at what’s coming later today by checking out this site. By typing in SEED, CROWD, AIR, and EXECUTE, you can look at some very fuzzy first images of the new Verdansk.

ORIGINAL: The big news for everyone is the launch of Call of Duty Warzone Season 3 and the new map that will be available for everyone to play on April 22.

The official Warzone patch notes don’t share any updates on what this new experience will be like, but we already know from various leaks that something big is coming.

A new version of Verdansk from a different era is reportedly launching today, complete with new Easter eggs and secret locations. This is expected to become playable after 8pm BST, on Thursday, April 22.

But while the new Verdansk will make up a massive part of Warzone Season 3, other big news is listed in the patch notes.

This includes a long list of changes to the current weapons found in the popular Battle Royale mode. One big change that has been announced by Raven Software is the elimination of Modern Warfare guns from floor loot.

From Season 3, it looks like everything you will find around the map will be exclusively from Black Ops Cold War, including the Swiss K31 Sniper Rifle and PPSh-41 SMG.

Meanwhile, fans have been waiting for some serious weapons tuning, and it looks like today will see the biggest changes made in a very long time.

Another pet peeve, The Roze Skin, is also being nerfed, with Raven Software confirming: “We’ve adjusted Roze in order to improve the Operators readability/visibility where sources of light are available.”

The FFAR1 is getting another big update today, damage range going up, whilst damage output is set to go down.

All the big changes have been listed in today’s Warzone patch notes, which can be found listed below:

WEAPONS

New Weapons

ATTACHMENTS

Position Concealment

Barrels

16.3” Rapid Fire (M16)
18” Rapid Fire (Tactical Rifle Charlie)
18.2” Strike Team (Tactical Rifle Charlie)
16.3” Titanium (M16)
17” Titanium (Tactical Rifle Charlie)
Sorokin 140mm Auto (Sykov)
Sorokin 140mm Auto AND Akimbo (Sykov)
The Sykov, when equipped with any permutation of the Sorokin 140mm Auto has been far more lethal at range than we would prefer. When secondary weapons can go toe-to-toe with, or even best a primary weapon consistently, we risk streamlining access to one of the most powerful Perks in the game—Ghost. While we continue to examine the impact that Ghost has on gameplay, providing easier access to it with negligible downside is not something we want to enable.

Lasers

Ember Sighting Point
SOF Target Designator

Magazines

Salvo/VDV Fast Mag
Speed Mag

Pistols
SMGs
Snipers

Muzzles

Flashguard
SOCOM/KGB Eliminator

Optics

SUSAT MultiZoom
Ultrazoom Custom
Vulture Custom Zoom

Rear Grips

We have begun the iterative process of tweaking values on attachments. We would like the diminution of weapon downside to be a build direction rather than a single attachment choice. As it stands, we feel most attachments need to have their values addressed in some regard to achieve this. We are hoping to make some previously nonviable options less so in addition to widening overall build variety. This may include increasing upsides or downsides on existing attachments. We are also actively looking at how we can create more compelling choices within the confines of attachment categories—chiefly, muzzles like the Monolithic and Agency Suppressor.

Gaming

Fortnite update 16.00 PATCH NOTES, Season 6 map changes, new skins, weapons, Wolves, MORE

March 16, 2021 Newslanes Media Leave a comment

(Image: EPIC GAMES)

Fortnite update 16 patch notes

UPDATE 3: Update details and patch notes have been revealed for Fortnite Season 6: Primal.

The new Battle Pass contains skins such as Agent Jones, Raz, Raven, Cluck, Tarana, Spire Assassin and Lara Croft. Neymar will also join Fortnite later in the season.

The Primal theme takes things back to a more primitive time, and will see nature reclaim the island. As you can see from the map below, this includes lots of new POIs for players to explore.

Fortnite players will also be able to tame wolves and use chickens to glide through the air.

Weapons like the Boom Bow will make a return for Season 6, alongside other primitive versions of classic weapons.

UPDATE 2: According to the latest set of Fortnite leaks, update 16.00 will indeed add tamable wolves, as well as other animals like chickens and boars.

Unconfirmed reports also suggest that Lara Croft will join the Battle Pass, alongside a chicken skin and a new Jonesy outfit.

Season 6 will coincide with the release of the Hazard Platoon Pack, which contains the Centurion outfit, new back bling, a picakxe and 600 V-Bucks.

Fortnite Season 6 Battle Pass (Image: EPIC GAMES)

UPDATE: Fortnite Season 6 server downtime has started, which means you can now begin to download update 16.00.

The new Fortnite update will launch at different times depending on the platform, although downtime begins and ends at the same time for everybody.

Speaking of downtime, the game has been taken offline by Epic, and won’t return until at least 8am GMT.

“Downtime for Chapter 2 Season 6 (v16.00) has begun!” reads an Epic tweet. “As a reminder, patch rollout times will vary per platform. We’ll let you all know when downtime has ended.”

ORIGINAL: Fortnite update 16.00 is about to be released on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, PC, Nintendo Switch and Android.

The new update has a March 16 release date. It will launch during a period of server downtime, which begins at 4am GMT.

The update launch time will vary depending on the platform, although downtime will end at the same time for all players.

Season 6 will begin with the Zero Crisis story cinematic, which premieres at 8am GMT. This is followed by a single-player mission available to all players when they login.

“CH2 Season 6 launches on March 16 with the explosive conclusion of the events of Season 5,” reads an Epic Games tweet. “You’ll play through the culmination of Agent Jones’ mission in the Zero Crisis Finale. This is a solo experience & you can play through it whenever you first log in during the Season.”

In terms of the Fortine update 16 patch notes, Season 6 will feature an updated map, as well as a brand new Battle Pass.

If the leaks are anything to go by, the Battle Pass could be headlined by a Neymar skin. That’s based on a recent teaser featuring what appears to be Neymar’s shirt.

Wolves are also tipped to appear in the new Fortnite Season, while a shotgun from Save the World is expected to make its debut.

Needless to say, update 16.0 launches with a whole host of gameplay tweaks and bug fixes, which can be seen in the patch notes below.

Express Online will update this article with the full list of update 16.0 patch notes when the update goes live after 4am GMT.

[embedded content]

Fortnite update 16 early patch notes…

General Fixes…

• Balloons item temporarily disabled.

– Due to a visual issue, we’ve temporarily disabled the Balloons item.

• Unable to edit color Styles for the Phantasmic Pulse Pickaxe in the Locker.

– Players are currently unable to change the color of the Phantasmic Pulse Pickaxe from the Boundless Set.

Battle Royale fixes…

• Split Screen “Ready Up!” issue.

– Players in Split Screen may have difficulty playing another match together due to the “Ready Up!” option not working properly.

• Inventory menu selector appearing on multiple slots.

– The inventory menu selector may appear on multiple slots simultaneously instead of just one.

Creative mode fixes…

• Player portal appears as “Creative Don’t Fill.”

– We’re investigating an issue that is causing player portals to appear as saying Creative Dont Fill

• Pressing the default key in pre-game lobby starts the game.

– We’re investigating that is causing Creative matches to start when pressing the default key.

• Main Player rift can sometimes show as a Seasonal Rift.

– We’re investigating an issue where the main player rift can appear as the season rift

General issues in development…

• Voice chat not working properly for some players. (See potential Xbox solution.)

– We’re investigating an issue causing voice chat to not work properly for some players.

• Long loading screen after completing a session on PlayStation/Xbox.

– We’re investigating an issue that is causing players to experience a long loading screen after completing a session on PlayStation and Xbox consoles.

• Cannot create system-level parties between PS5 and PS4 when playing Fortnite.

– When playing Fortnite, players cannot create system-level parties that include players on both PS5 and PS4.

Mobile issues in development…

• 3D resolution reset itself even if the player saved the settings

– The 3D reset itself to 75% on each launch of the title, even if the player saved their settings to 100% in the last session.

• Players cannot change their custom controller settings while playing Nintendo Switch in Docked mode.

– Players are shown a ‘Keep These Video Settings?’ message and are unable to change their custom controls.

Travel

Heathrow Airport: Sneak peek at airport's lockdown ‘weapons’ including robots

March 11, 2021 Newslanes Media Leave a comment

Heathrow Airport has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, however, even with most flights grounded, the flight hub has remained open. Yet this has come at something of a cost to the airport.

A new ITV documentary series, Heathrow: Britain’s Busiest Airport, lifts the curtain on what life is like at the airport during lockdown and how it plans to welcome back passengers in the future.

Filmed in November 2020, the airport was hit with the news England would enter a month-long national lockdown.

As a result, travel was reserved only for those working, repatriating home or for essential purposes as set out by the Government.

Demand for flights had already dropped by more than 60 percent worldwide, according to the documentary, and Heathrow had moved from running around 650 flights per day to just 88.

READ MORE: When can you go on a cruise holiday?

“We’ve just got to ensure we give them the confidence to fly as an airport.”

When it comes to new measures, no cost is spared.

As the documentary points out, they have put in place a number of “weapons of mass disinfection”.

“We’ve got a one-way system to stop people from mixing and bumping into each other,” said Denny.

“At the ticket desk, they’ve got perspex screens in between. The self-service machines [also have] perspex screens.”

What’s more, self-service screens can also be sprayed down by an automatic device that shoots a fine mist of sanitiser over the touchpoints

There are also staff members armed with special disinfecting guns.

They explain their job is to “spray everything that people touch” with a special “D10” mixture which is “killing corona”.

Furthermore, dedicated Covid marshals wander the functioning terminals, keeping an eye out for anyone not obeying policies.

“We’ve got them out and about making sure everyone’s wearing a face-covering make sure they are social distancing and sticking to the rules,” said Denny.

However, perhaps the most eye-catching and costly of the new measures are a series of robots who are tasked with keeping the toilets fully sanitised.

“There are robots on wheels which go in and I think they fully sanitise the toilets,” said the airport worker.

The machines appear to mechanically move down through the cubicles, spraying a mist of disinfectant over every surface including walls and floors.

“They’re not cheap, but if that’s what excites you and to keep a bit more confidence in people coming and checking in and going on their flights,” continued Denny.

“Obviously they can’t be in lockdown but this is what it’s about until it gets sorted.”

Newslanes