DDS Extraction Kit v3.8 / UE 5.8
EXTRACTION KIT DOCS
Overview
A complete third person extraction shooter framework with co-op raids, cover based AI, an economy and a Steam online layer. The Kit is standalone: everything that belonged only to The Fixers has been removed, so what ships is yours to build on.
The manual
Every guide in one file: setup, characters, weapons, AI, camera, doors, maps, economy, destruction, saving, the online backend and PlayFab. 402 pages.
Use the bookmarks panel in your PDF viewer to jump straight to a section, or download it and keep it next to the project.
Migration and updates
Moving a project built on an older version of the Kit, or taking a future update. Covers the old to new folder and class changes, a mapping table, a step by step procedure and the common problems.
Installation
The Extraction Kit is a complete Unreal project, not a plugin. There is nothing to install into an engine folder. Unzip it and open the project.
DDSExtractionKit_v3.zip -> unzip anywhere -> open DDSExtractionKit.uproject
If Unreal asks to rebuild modules on first open, accept. That is normal for a fresh project.
Installing the OSK plugin
OSK ships with the kit and does install like a normal plugin. Copy the OSK folder into your project's Plugins directory, then enable it under Edit, Plugins.
YourProject/
Plugins/
OnlineSystemsKit/
OnlineSystemsKit.upluginCreate the Plugins folder if your project does not have one yet. Restart the editor after copying, then enable OSK and rebuild.
Walkthrough
Licence
What you may build, who on your team may use the Kit, and what happens after release. Read it before you buy. Effective 2 October 2026.
Kit Licence, one time purchase. Covers one game, which you may develop, release and sell with no ongoing membership. Includes the OSK Steam plugin and every future Kit update at no extra cost. Each additional game needs its own licence.
Membership, Patreon Premium or VIP. Covers one game in active development at a time, and a game may only release once the membership has been active for six continuous months. VIP includes the OSK Steam plugin. Premium does not, so multiplayer runs over a local network or by IP address, without Steam login, friends, parties, lobbies, voice or Cloud saves.
Released games stay yours. Once a game has released under a valid licence or membership it stays licensed permanently, and you may keep patching, updating and selling it after a membership ends.
Memberships that started before 2 October 2026 keep their previous terms. Redistributing the Kit or OSK is not allowed under any licence.
Support
Support runs in the private developer Discord, answered by the people who wrote the systems. Lifetime updates are included with your purchase.
Release history
Changelog
Every release, newest first. Owners get all of these free.
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Hired companions, downed teammates and the neck seam
- Hired companions now follow you into the raid. Hire Vex and Rook and both arrive with their own names, looks and stats. Before, one unnamed companion with the default look turned up, and hiring two still only brought one
- Downed teammates and companions are easy to find. A red REVIVE label sits over their head, their health ring turns red and drains with their bleed out timer, and their squad panel row goes red and drains too. Downed allies keep their marker at any distance, and REVIVING shows while someone is picking them up
- AI no longer teleport when knocked down. A knocked down AI stops moving while it is on the floor and picks up where it left off after getting up, and the unstuck safety net now ignores ragdolled AI and waits three seconds after they stand. Measured at a 250 cm jump before, zero after
- AI look where they fight. An engaged AI near you used to keep its head turned to you while walking off to its real target, then snap
- Companions fight back when shot. A companion that lost sight of its target and was then shot by that target used to do nothing and give up. It now re-engages, and it will not break off to run back to you or to revive you while it is under fire
- The gap at the neck is gone on characters with no top. Mutable was baking bodies with four bone influences per vertex while the MetaHuman head uses twelve, so the shared neck edge deformed differently on each and cracked open while moving. Bodies now bake at twelve to match
- Male B and Female B use their own matching body mesh, same shape and clothes as before, for a cleaner seam
- New Shirtless outfit, owned by default, so you can see the seam for yourself
- Backpacks sit at the right height on female characters. The shared socket was modelled against the male body, which put the bag high on women
- Character creator cameras frame the character properly in the main menu. Face, Hair and Backpack were jumping to the corner of the scene
New file: Config/DefaultMutable.ini. If you merge the Kit into your own project, or copy only Content, copy this file too, restart the editor and run Tools, Kit, Recompile Wardrobe COs, or MetaHuman bodies show a gap at the neck. It must be present when you package.
Two new Blueprint nodes under Kit|Appearance for checking your own meshes: Get Max Bone Influences and Measure Neck Seam. The LogStateTree ... StopLogic failed warnings are gone, because the AI StateTree is now stopped while the pawn is still possessed. KitRuntime changed, so rebuild your C++.
Premium: if your copy would not compile the game instance or the main menu, that is fixed. Never copy Fixers or VIP KitRuntime session files over Premium.
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Quest turn-ins, blind fire and controller support
- Jobs now pay out properly. Progress only counts out in the raid, nothing completes the moment you accept it, and talking to the NPC no longer pays you by itself. Their menu opens on a Turn In screen with the job, the task and the reward
- Blind fire from cover. Shoot without aiming: at an edge one arm reaches around the corner, over a low wall the gun comes up over the lip, level and following your crosshair. Your body stays in cover and reloading pulls the gun back in
- Your own shots no longer pass through walls. A muzzle poking through geometry now starts the shot on your side of it
- Controller support for the character creator and the stash. Tiles highlight as you move, shoulder buttons switch category, and the stash navigates as a grid whose left and right edges cross into the same row of your bag
- A joining player's saved gear keeps retrying for twenty seconds instead of giving up on the first try, and bag slots are renumbered after every change so weight and item moves stay correct for them
- Press 3 again to put a grenade or utility away. The debug loadout no longer leaves the old weapon in your hands, and grenade launcher timed rounds load from the inventory or with R
- Talking to an NPC no longer makes you invisible to everyone else
- AI corpses stay on the ground instead of sinking or jumping
- AI turn to new shots they hear, walk facing where they are going instead of backpedalling, move toward the shooter rather than the bullet hole, and aim up and down at you
- AI in cover reload and keep firing. Rifle AI used to run dry after one magazine because their spare ammo was the wrong type
- Your companion walks beside you instead of on your heels, and revives you without waiting for you to roll into view
- Aiming: the gun stays on the crosshair while you turn, the rifle nose no longer lifts as you track sideways, and your feet step around faster so the body keeps up
- Cover feel: your head no longer follows the camera while in cover, entering cover slides you in, and a slide into cover no longer pushes you out the far side
- Crouch and stand no longer pop you up or down for a frame, head turning is smooth, and the zipline hand grabs the cable as you mount
- The raid map's cover hugs the wall again and you can slide its full length
- Cameras: the conversation camera uses the focus and aperture you set on that NPC and no longer brightens the scene, the main menu keeps every player in focus, and dropping out of first person no longer swoops up from the floor
- The HUD weapon readout clears when you unequip, and the AI detection meter clears when an AI dies or is downed
VIP: if the party leader goes back to the main menu, friends are no longer bounced to the startup screen in a loop. Friends follow automatically when the leader hosts again.
If you already build on the Kit: turn-in moved out of the Fixer interaction and into the player controller, the AI unstuck subsystem changed so rebuild your C++, and there is new blind fire and spine twist tuning on the character animation blueprint.
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Checkpoints, T-rex hands and currency cleanup
- Save zones are checkpoints by default, saving once per session the first time you walk in. A new per zone option saves on every pass instead, with a cooldown
- T-rex hands on Low settings is fixed at the root. Every character animates a hidden skeleton that never renders, so its detail level was never re-evaluated and stayed wherever it spawned. On Low that meant folded wrists. It now always runs at full detail, which covers your character after a death and NPCs at level start
- Picking up ammo with no backpack now says that you need a backpack, instead of Inventory Full with an empty bag
- The lobby Heavy Ammo table now actually holds heavy ammo, and the explosive ammo sign says explosive
- Test Rifle uses Medium ammo and the Revolver uses Heavy. AI riflemen and the rifle loot crate carry Medium to match
- The left hand no longer whips around almost a full turn before taking the grip again after a reload. It now moves straight back onto the gun
- The old Low, Clean and Ghost Stratts currency is gone. Everything runs on Cash, Credit and Premium
- Leftover references to the old Fixers project folder are cleared out of the effect materials
If you already build on the Kit: anything that used the old currency enum now takes the new one, in the same order, and the inventory snapshot outputs are renamed to Cash, Credit and Premium.
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Vibration, saves and the shop
- Sliding down a ramp no longer shakes the body at high frame rates. This is the sustained slide, separate from the entry and exit stutter fixed in v3.4
- The step smoother no longer mistakes a ramp for stairs, so no floating body while sliding and no flicker between 110 and 150 fps
- After being knocked down, the body no longer vibrates when you jump on a fast PC
- You can no longer jump while getting up from a ragdoll, and jump works again the moment you stand
- The red bumper pad launches you properly now: you stand on it instead of sinking in, it throws you into the air, and you land beside it and get up on your own. Strength and forward bias are tunable per pad
- Crouching and pressing Shift without moving no longer stands you up. Hold Shift and start moving to stand and sprint
- Your saved character actually loads. The start of game save no longer overwrites your look, unlocks and currency with defaults
- Save zones now save everything: carried gear and stash with ammo and durability, currency, look, unlocks and quests
- Several saves in a row are no longer dropped, so the newest one is the one written
- Damage and revive messages no longer print on screen. They are still in the log
- Customization station: Accept now shows one checkout for everything you previewed and do not own yet, with the total per currency, and buys it all at once
- Master Guide v3.12
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Patch: ziplines, slide stutter and backpack weapons
- The weapon you moved from a loadout slot into backpack storage now actually leaves your hands
- The last of the slide jitter is gone: no stutter in the first frames of dropping into or standing up from a slide or crouch at speed
- Zipline chains work: linking one zipline to the next builds a real connector cable instead of an editor only line, and a new Tools button repairs chains in levels you have already built
- Pressing E when you are already out along a cable starts the ride from where you stand, instead of pulling you back to the post first
- UE5 Manny and Quinn, UE4 and UEFN bodies no longer show up headless in Play In Editor
- After editing a body in the identity table or a garment table, the Tools button is now named clearly: Recompile Wardrobe COs. Run it or the game keeps the old body
- New moving ragdoll obstacles by the ziplines in the lobby: bumper, crankshaft, hammer, hopper, smack arm and turnstile
- Master Guide v3.11, with a zipline section in chapter 19 and a walkthrough for replacing the mesh of a shipped body in chapter 7
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Matchmaking Update: raids on servers
- Raids now run on servers. The raid terminal finds the best raid server running the map you picked, your whole party follows you in and lands on the same team, and other parties on that server get their own teams
- If no server answers, the raid starts the old way with the party leader hosting, so nothing breaks
- New DDS Matchmaking plugin that does not depend on the Kit. Drop it into any Unreal Engine 5.8 project, including Meta Quest, to host, find and join matches through player hosted games, your own servers, Steam or EOS sessions, or your own backend
- Any packaged build can act as a raid server, with no source built engine needed. Dedicated headless servers are supported when you have a Server build
- A matchmaking test raid with four team spawn groups of four, listed on the terminal
- Point builds at your own servers through a data table or a command line switch, with console commands for finding and joining
- PLAY OFFLINE when Steam is not running, with a config switch if your game must require Steam
- The login screen now works with a controller
- AI no longer get stuck under ledges. The down only navigation links were pointing up, fixed in the shipped maps and in the nav link tool
- A native watchdog frees AI that stop making progress or circle a path point
- No more twitching when you lie against a trap, the sniper scope no longer leaves you zoomed in after closing the menu, and the elevator panel works with a controller
- Master Guide v3.9 with a new chapter on matchmaking and dedicated servers, plus a standalone Matchmaking Guide
Premium has no OSK, so the Steam parts of this update do not apply there.
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Patch 1
- Multi floor elevator with a floor picker
- Sprint jump buffer, slide smoothing and a corpse camera
- Ammo HUD refresh and loot click fixed
- Door mesh and collision fixed
- AI now hear bullet impacts
- Dead bodies behave: hair fixed, dead Fixers stay dead, frozen corpses stop spinning
- A 15 socket contract on every body and a mirrored gun palm socket
- C++ AI spawn queue with asset preloading, configurable in Project Settings
- Tools menu command to recompile the wardrobe customisable objects
- Hair blur console variables
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Standalone Kit, melee and ragdoll, a combat and AI overhaul
- Melee fist fighting: punches, blocks and directional hit reactions, built on the takedown animation set
- Replicated ragdoll and takedown physics, so knockdowns and finishers play correctly for everyone in the session
- Two new weapons, a revolver and a sniper rifle, bringing the starting set to seven
- Proximity mines you can place and trigger, and auto turrets that now take a weapon row and a damage override so you can tune what they fire
- Placeable ziplines with a hang pose and rope hand IK. Aim while you ride, jump off or reattach mid cable, and chain one line straight into the next. Network predicted and tested across host and client
- Weapon audio was silent in earlier builds and is now wired at the muzzle, with casing drops, reload cuts and dry fire
- Cover AI fixed: enemies now pick a side they can actually reach, stop flipping between cover and chase on the same frame, hold the right eye height and check the wall before stepping out
- AI perception widened and given an investigate sweep when they arrive, and dead or downed AI stop thinking, shooting and talking
- Squad commands: point an AI squadmate to move, hold position, attack a target or follow you
- Voice sets split male and female across enemies, civilians and companions, and civilians use smart objects so they sit and react in character
- Saving now runs when the host migrates, and downed players can no longer fire, reload, throw or swap weapons
- The Kit is now fully standalone. Everything that belonged only to The Fixers has been removed, so what ships is yours to build on
- Fixed 29 broken effect materials: grenade flare, damage numbers, debris, glass decals and the pickup pads
- New licence effective 2 October 2026, a new Migration Guide for moving an existing project onto this version, and a Master Guide rewritten to 30 chapters against the current project
- In game lobby boards rewritten with a full controls reference, and currencies renamed to Cash, Credit and Premium
Verified on a two client listen server run: lobby, raid, extraction, death, revive, saving, the drone, proximity mines and all seven weapons.
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Co-op stability, performance and host migration
- Large performance pass: higher lobby frame rate and a big cut to per-character animation cost
- Host migration added, so a session survives the host leaving
- Gear, clothing and companion behaviour now persist correctly in peer-to-peer sessions
- Auto-turrets added, with tracking, firing, health and destruction
- Fixed a camera-peek exploit that let players see and shoot through walls
- Fixed the mirrored-strafe moonwalk at its root and repaired 51 broken animation databases
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Modular doors, co-op elevator and saves
- Modular door system added, with shared co-op interaction
- Co-op elevator added for moving a squad between floors
- Save system extended, including protection against combat logging
- AI squadmates now use healing stims and revive properly
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Enemy and companion AI overhaul
- Enemy and companion AI rebuilt on Behavior Trees and EQS for far more believable fights
- Enemies now take cover properly, peek, step out from edges and stop firing through walls
- Sight and hearing rebuilt: enemies investigate gunshots and search where they last saw you
- Waypoint patrol system added, with route claiming, scatter and per-point waiting
- Enemies retreat, reposition, flank and push as a group instead of charging one at a time
- Companions follow you properly, including down ledges and through traversal links
- Fixed AI walking into walls and getting stuck circling their target
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Cover system, gunplay and proximity voice chat
- Full player cover system: enter, exit, slide, lean, shoulder swap and aim from cover
- Cover made server-authoritative so it behaves correctly for every player in co-op
- Weapon grip rebuilt with proper off-hand and left-hand inverse kinematics
- Real bullet spread restored, and the crosshair now tells the truth about where you will hit
- Explosive props added: propane tanks, barrels and gas tanks you can shoot
- Surface-specific impact effects, reworked grenades and a rebuilt recoil feel
- Proximity voice chat over Steam, with squad mute
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HUD, damage overlay and character polish
- Damage overlay finished, so injuries read visibly on the character
- Shoulder swap now mirrors the character and weapon correctly, including for other players
- Procedural recoil reworked to drive up and into the shoulder
- Pedestrian AI and neutral-faction targeting added
- Menu character display finished, with a proper fade-in
- Interaction detection redesigned, and aiming now hides the interaction UI
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First-person mode and the animation rebuild
- First-person mode added, with free-look, adjustable field of view and correct shadows
- Animation rebuilt around per-body-part layering, fixing aim lag and pose bleed
- Weapon and body overlay systems rebuilt from the ground up
- Settings menu shipped with all tabs, plus cloud saves across three backends
- Bullet impulse, magazine drops and crouch handling reworked