![planetside-arena-hex-shield](https://massivelyop.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/planetside-arena-hex-shield-696x227.png)
When your battle royale game is designed for 1,000+ player fights but nowhere near enough players show up, you’ve got to make some adjustments. That’s just what the next update for PlanetSide Arena is doing, adding features that adjust the game’s pain field and safe zones at points where a match population is particularly low along with a number of other improvements.
With this latest update, lower population matches will now see squads spawn closer to the initial safe zone and closer to one another. Additionally, the time between phases and the speed at which the pain field will collapse will vary according to match population; the lower the population, the shorter the time between phases and the faster the pain field will move. This, ideally, will lead to more fights more frequently.
The update will also make some improvements to underbarrel weapon attachments, making them available on all weapon rarities and granting them their own dedicated hotkey to engage instead of double-tapping the fire button. Players can also interrupt reloads to switch to their underbarrel if they so choose.
The update is also offering up a number of bug squashes and performance improvements, improved indicator sounds for various hit states to characters and vehicles, and additional anti-cheat measures. All of the specifics are in the patch notes.