Hidden Trails, Familiar Companions

The clearing falls silent

Ranger camouflage now hides the concealed player and their equipment from other players, rather than leaving the character visibly standing in the open. Players arriving later receive the same concealment. When the buff ends or is removed, the character becomes visible again.

You retain your own local avatar for movement and control. Camouflage duration, kit consumption and detection rules have not changed. Mask Scent is unchanged; this is not invulnerability or a guarantee against creature detection.

A bond is counted fairly

The handler's faction companion stepped aside. It no longer occupied a place in the Creature Handler's creature-control allowance merely because it looked like an animal.

Crafted pet activation and creature-pet summoning now count only Creature Handler pets toward that allowance. This repairs the false control-level rejection that faction creatures could cause when claiming companions such as a Bio-Engineer Blackwing Rancor. The correction applies to existing deeds and companions as well as new ones.

Pet combat stats are preserved. Real creature-level limits, active-pet limits, aggressive-pet skill requirements and normal activation restrictions still apply. If your actual Creature Handler pets fill the allowance, store one before calling another.

The Annihilator remembers its stance

The gunner settled the Annihilator into its intended low-held stance. A later companion update had displaced that stance; the missing animation state has now been restored without replacing the newer pet animation states.

The weapon keeps its model, sound, Heavy armor piercing, combat stats and six-shot timed burst. Close the game and run Launcher Scan/Update before testing the repair. Please report any remaining wrong stance, especially while moving, kneeling or prone.

A clear route back to the galaxy

The September 25 launcher repair addressed the file-in-use error that could prevent a downloaded launcher update from being installed. That repair-only updater has since been superseded by the complete installer.

If an older launcher still fails while installing its own update, close the game and launcher and use the current complete Vlu launcher installer. Keep your game files, select their folder in the installed launcher, then run Scan/Update before reconnecting.