Build 0.4.172 Update - Build Notes

Written By RisingFenix

Mech Overhaul, Harvestable Ruins Added, Vehicle Cameras Fixed, and more

We had a pretty good week. Mech has been migrated and expanded from Beta. All vehicle cameras have been fixed. We added harvestable ruins to the map, along with making the lost drones harvestable. And lots of other small fixes and improvements.

Also, a lot of people were saying the Experimental Branch was more playable than the Main Branch, so we're updating both builds this week with the latest stuff.

Mech

The original launch version used a Mech system that was driven completely by math. While it allowed for nice foot placement we found that it just didn't have the right look and feel. Through the Experience builds we tried a fully animated system and while that did allow for some further functionality like running and jumping, it still didn't feel quite right.

Our ultimate solution is the combination of math driven IK on top of the animated control system, which gives the Mech a very detailed feel and allows for full control. We even added look-at constraints to the guns, so that the arms now aim at their targets - something that was asked for in the Beta Builds.

Vehicle Cameras

This was an easy one, but caught up to us after the engine update. As many of you know the radar map system has been changed to a 2D system, which allows more functionality and is far more optimal (and we've taken enormous strides to be performant). It turns out the vehicles still used the old camera layered radar which in the modern engine sometimes causes the terrain shader to wig out. So we fixed that.

Ruins and Lost Drones

We sprinkled some drones from the original settlement before the Osiris Missions began (more on story later...) in a past update. Now they are harvestable, which will give you more resources to survive on.

While we were at it we added lost bases to discover and harvest. Not a story element yet, but more something to find and harvest to ease the build progression until we have a chance to do a proper balance pass on the economy.

Lots of Minor Fixes

We had some players on Discord mention some textures and shaders were missing on some of the guns, so we fielded that, along with making sure bullets hit all the enemies correctly (a collision layer change that we missed through the AI pass, apologies).

  • Fixed vehicle black terrain issue

  • Pushing repair 100% item durability from last update

  • Added extra error handling to multiplayer saving

  • Renamed generic mineral nodes from Base Metal to Mineral Outcropping

  • Renamed Precious Metal to Rich Mineral Outcropping

  • Added larger generic mineral clusters in specific locations around the map, will be swapped to specific minerals when the economy rebalance is finished.

  • Reduced auto-placed frequency of generic mineral outcropping nodes

  • Increased auto-placed frequency of harvestable vegetation

  • Lessened radius of worm spawn triggers to match the interior base of their craters

  • Added harvestable base ruins within worm spawn craters

  • Old droids outside mine entrances are now harvestable

  • Fixed broken model of rover inside of Beta Mine

  • Fixed various mesh holes in the walls of a few mines

Incase you missed it from last week

Stealth Gameplay

We're getting further afield with the AI and behavior systems, and tuning intricate behaviors is getting easier and easier. There's still more we'd like to add to make the creatures more animated when changing states, but the overall feel is coming along nicely.

Creatures in Mines Now Respect Walls

A weird bug to track down since it only occurred in the build, but we found it. Something to do with the pathfinding graph not registering. Anyway, we fixed that last week.

Fixes from last week

  • Creature spawning has been fixed

  • Fixed bug causing creatures to always track the player

  • Refined stealth gameplay, creatures now properly respect line of sight and the sound player actions make to track their target

  • Creature wave spawns overall are now limited to every 2~4 minutes

  • Fixed a bug causing passive enemy spawn waves to not occur

  • Passive enemy spawn waves now occur in 5~10 minute intervals

  • Fixed off grid detection for creatures

  • Fixed furnace smelting recipes

  • Fixed creature interactions with dead bodies

  • Flashlight now only alerts enemies at night or in dungeons

  • Increased beetle's search arrive threshold so they don’t get stuck due to their turning radius

RisingFenix
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