Exfil's Public Testing branch has moved to build 0438-CL2840. Its new feature is a rewrite of AI smoke grenade handling, alongside tweaks and fixes for helicopters, intel, hostage rescue, loadouts, and map visibility.

• Smoke between you and an enemy blocks their view and aim.
• If you are inside smoke, you get a concealment bonus, making you harder to detect and hit.
• It is not a perfect shield: AI can still shoot at you, just like a human would.
• Enemies treat smoke as a danger zone and won't blindly walk through it unless they have no other path.
• It is still an approximation using a spherical volume, not a pixel-perfect simulation, so expect situations where you can see them through the smoke and they can't.
• Flashbangs apply a disoriented/suppressed effect to NPCs. There are no clear visuals or animations communicating the state, so it may still feel ineffective, but they are not useless.

• You can play emotes while seated in a helicopter, so you can politely greet opposing teams.
• The emote wheel is a bit more responsive with the addition of a rotating arrow.
• Helicopter markers are visible only for friendly teams.
• The intel notebook now gives a soft beep when dropped on the ground.
• Shell casing impact sounds now play on more surface types; they were often silent.
• Ops hostage rescue now checks safe house vicinity instead of the safe house landing zone. Just bring the hostage close to a safehouse; you don't have to bring Smith completely indoors.
• Loadout limit arrows now have a tooltip so it's clear which team they belong to without relying on color.
• The loadout editor in the main menu and solo play screen has been updated so equipment and appearance are more clearly on separate tabs. This is work in progress as part of the economy rework.

• AI visibility on chainlink fences with cloth or tarp cover has been fixed. AI was seeing through them because chainlink fences usually aren't visibility blockers. This mostly affected the Renegade Oil map, which has a lot of tarps.
• GPS is blocked while seated in a helicopter. It was not an allowed action, but a keybind hint appeared and the ability was active.
• Fixed the error when dropping grenades from a helicopter with no equipped weapon. You can still drop grenades—unintended, but not being fixed because it's fun—there's just no animation. Drop some smoke on your LZ for cover.
• NPCs in the wandering NPC benchmark now wander; they were missing a navigation mesh.
• Attachments can no longer be edited on locked or disallowed loadout items.

Build 0435-CL2759 (Update 435-CL2759) is now on Exfil's main branch. The headline changes are combat-feel improvements: M24 and SRS rifles have manual bolting, blood effects are bigger and now have an on/off option, and servers can restrict NVG use.

• The M24 and SRS rifles now require a click after firing to cycle the action, making hit confirmation easier when aiming down scopes.
• Blood impacts are larger and include new FX. Headshot kills have a distinct effect, and a new option can turn blood effects off entirely.
• New server option for NVGs: On, No Thermals, or No NVGs.

• NPC weapon aim behavior was rewritten. Animation now has less impact on aim, aiming movement is less jittery, and NPCs are more accurate at higher difficulties. This had already been pushed in smaller increments to the public test branch.
• Suppression now affects NPC accuracy. Near misses apply a suppression effect that lasts a few seconds and stacks.
• Players can equip two LAWs at once.
• C4 carry count is increased from 2 to 3.
• SMG muzzle effects (which were using old FX) and pistol muzzle effects have been updated.
• Reloading and magazine checks now run through the gameplay ability system. This is invisible to players, but the changelog notes it in case new reloading issues show up.

• Fixed a crash that could occur when NPCs died while using a door.
• Fixed wrong camera alignment when using the two-handed GPS while leaning.
• Fixed the Toggle lean option requiring two key presses if a lean was canceled for any reason.
• Fixed NPCs firing too soon while a reload was in progress and waiting too long before starting to reload.
• Fixed the GPS getting stuck if you started reloading or another action too quickly.
• Fixed the HUD being recreated every time you switched between 1p and 3p view mode.
• Optimized impact FX handling and replaced some surface impact effects that lingered too long.
• Removed rain from the main menu so the soldier in the loadout editor no longer gets wet.

Known issue: the "Empty" utility in loadout selection is not a bug. It's part of the economy/shop work for Combat Ops and can be ignored for now.