Squad Unity and Split Up Bugs

Overview

Squad Unity and Split Up are the two "healing lockout by distance" Battlefield Conditions in Operations. Both got a distance tweak in Patch 13.2 that the official notes said would make them less punishing. Two separate mistakes shipped instead:

1. Only half of each change was applied. Each mutator has two internal distances, an activation radius and a deactivation radius. Only the activation radius was edited, the deactivation radius was left at the old 20m. Because the two no longer line up, the debuff can turn on in a range where the off-switch has nothing to react to.

2. The values landed on the wrong mutators. The patch notes intended Squad Unity to go to 25m and Split Up to go to 15m. In the actual files the 25m is on Split Up and the 15m is on Squad Unity. They are swapped, thus making each modifier more punishing instead of less.

Background

Both Squad Unity and Split Up switch off your entire healing and armour-restoration toolkit based on how close you are to your squad. When active, a mutator applies a stack of -100% modifiers (armour regen, finisher armour restore on every enemy tier, contested-health buffer, healing injector pool) plus three hard engine flags (DISABLE_HEALTH_TRAIL, DISABLE_HEALTH_RESTORE_BY_PERKS, DISABLE_ARMOR_RESTORE_BY_PERKS). The two are mirror images:

The display-name mapping is confirmed from the game's own localization table:

UI_MUTATOR_NO_RESTORE_AT_FAR_DISTANCE_NAME     "Squad Unity"
UI_MUTATOR_NO_RESTORE_AT_FAR_DISTANCE_DESC      "When you do not maintain close proximity to Squad Members, Armour and Contested Health restoration are disabled"

UI_MUTATOR_NO_RESTORE_AT_CLOSE_DISTANCE_NAME    "Split Up"
UI_MUTATOR_NO_RESTORE_AT_CLOSE_DISTANCE_DESC     "When you maintain close proximity to Squad Members, Armour and Contested Health restoration are disabled"

Patch 13.2 Issues

The Patch 13.2 notes described the change as:

- Squad Unity - increased distance to 25 meters
- Split Up - decreased distance to 15 meters

Both of these are intended as nerfs to the handicap that players experience (they make the mutators easier to play around):

• Squad Unity to 25m = longer leash = you can roam further before healing shuts off = less punishing.

• Split Up to 15m = smaller bubble = easier to step outside and heal = less punishing.

Here is what is actually in the files. Each mutator has an activation radius (checked while the debuff is off, to decide when to turn it on) and a deactivation radius (checked while it is on, to decide when to turn it off):

Two problems are visible immediately:

1. The 25 is on Split Up and the 15 is on Squad Unity. Squad Unity's NoRestoreAtFarDistance perk contains no 25 anywhere in any version, and Split Up's NoRestoreAtCloseDistance contains no 15 anywhere. The intended values were applied to the opposite mutators.

2. In P13.2 the two radii within each mutator no longer match. Only the activation radius was changed; deactivation stayed at 20m. That misalignment is what breaks the on/off logic.

Bug with Weekly Stratagem #46

Each of these perks is a two-state switch with a separate distance for turning on and turning off.

In Patch 12 and 13.1 both radii were 20m with exactly opposite conditions, so 20m was one clean line: cross it going out and the debuff turns on; cross it coming back and it turns off. Every crossing produces a real state-change for whichever switch is listening, in both directions. Nothing can get stuck.

In Patch 13.2 the on-distance and off-distance are different, which opens a roughly 5-meter gap between them (Squad Unity 15-20m, Split Up 20-25m). Inside that gap the debuff turns on, but the off-switch is still pinned to the old 20m mark - a distance you are already inside - so from its point of view nothing has changed and it has nothing to react to. The debuff latches on and stays on even after you go back to where it should be off.

Here's an example of how a player may experience this bug with Squad Unity on Patch 13.2:

1. You are next to your squad. Debuff off, healing works.

2. You cross the 15m activation line, the debuff turns on. But 17m is still inside 20m, so the off-switch (which watches the 20m line) sees no change.

3. You walk back to your teammate. You never went past 20m, so the off-switch still sees no change and never fires.

4. You are now standing on top of your teammate with the no-healing debuff stuck on, even though you are as close as it is possible to be.

The only way to clear the bugged state is to give the off-switch the change it is waiting for: move back out past 20m and then return, which finally registers as a fresh "teammate came within 20m" event.

Split Up is the same failure mirrored. Its gap is 20-25m, and it can strand you with the no-healing debuff on while you are fully spread out - the position that is supposed to be safe for a "penalized when close" mutator.

Issues with Patch 14 PTS

The Patch 14 PTS build resolves the stuck-state by matching each mutator's two radii again (Squad Unity 15/15, Split Up 25/25). But because it matched them to the swapped activation values, the end result is both mutators being harsher than the Patch 12 baseline and the opposite of the stated goal:

So the intended change was "make both easier to live with." What will actually ship in Patch 14 if not corrected is "make both harder than they have ever been," on top of a live-service window (all of Patch 13.2) where they are outright bugged.

The correct fix is a one-line swap on each perk: set Squad Unity's radii to 25/25 and Split Up's radii to 15/15. That matches the patch notes and delivers the intended, less-punishing behavior.

Game Files

• ssl/player/perks/perk_server_factory.sso

• ssl/player/mutators/game_mutators_factory.sso

• texts/strings_english.str

• ssl/game_mode/hordemode_mutators/hordemode_mutators_library.sso