Experimental Build 0.4.581
New Biomes, New Alien Foliage, Original Audio Tracks Added, and lots of improvements
*Note - These changes are only on the Experimental Branch. To access the Experimental Branch, be sure to select it in your Steam Library. If this app does not appear, please check if this app is hidden in your Library. Experimental Branch changes upgrade to the primary branch monthly.
Developing The New Biomes
You have been asking for more biomes in our worlds, and we couldn't agree more! We've had to get the game's performance, stability, and memory usage under control to make room for the art, along with a suite of tools to create vast and detailed areas. Both development threads have now been accomplished.
When looking at our world art one aspect we wanted to maintain was keeping our worlds hand-sculpted, as opposed to procedurally generated. The proprietary terrain and placement tools we created allow for articulated and detailed distribution of grass and foliage while allowing all the artistic flexibility required to properly design out specific areas and biomes within a single world location.
The end result when using these tools allowed us to create the biomes for Proteus 2 relatively quickly, and we look forward to applying this technology to the more lush worlds on our roadmap, such as Seraph and Gemini while bringing interesting possibilities to legacy favorites like Aziel and Zer.
In the meantime, we got a little carried away and took a bunch of screenshots! Apologies if this seems a little indulgent, but we couldn't help ourselves. :)
Change List
Added - New biomes around Proteus 2
Added - Huge art pass on Proteus 2
Added - 8 new kinds of foliage on Proteus 2
Added - Bioluminescent foliage on Proteus 2
Added - Grass to various areas on Proteus 2
Added - Rare and Specific minerals around the surface of Proteus 2
Added - Improved sand dunes on Proteus 2
Added - Improved first-person melee detection
Added - Support for Creatures to despawn when out of range of all players
Added - New soundtrack music
Added - Voice Logs screen to UI
Added - New icons for Space Station Bin, Cryopod, and Lockers
Added - Compass and Map icon to Hover Craft
Added - Custom Resolution options in the main menu
Added - Support for picking up Voice Log items
Added - Waypoint alignment option to CreatureZones
Added - Behavior override options to CreatureZones
Added - Spawn chance settings to CreatureZones
Added - Adjusted all existing creature prefabs for compatibility with Creature Zones
Added - Adjusted handling for CreatureZone waypoint alignment in dungeons
Fixed - Spaceship should no longer get stuck in space if throttled low when exiting the planet
Fixed - Chat now works as intended in multiplayer
Fixed - Reworked player ground sticky code to allow for improved traversal
Fixed - Liquid and Gas names are no longer truncated in crafting menus
Fixed - Creatures now have correct colliders improving first person combat
Fixed - Voice Log UI functionality updates
Changed - Adjustments to textures on Proteus 2
Changed - Refinement and optimization of soundtrack controller
Changed - Large Solar Panel can now satisfy the Small Solar Panel build requirement for Hab
Changed - Improvements to Colossus movement
Changed - Heartbeat now only plays during stamina penalty
Changed - Slightly increased size of colliders on insects
Changed - Size of Wasp creature
Changed - Oxygen display name is now O2 from O
Changed - Chlorine display name is now Cl2 from Cl
Changed - Nitrogen display name is now N2 from N
Changed - Methane display name is now CH4 from O (was unset after copy from oxygen)
Changed - Fluorine display name is now F2 from Fl
We hope you enjoy exploring Proteus 2 with its new biomes, new music, new plants, new minerals, and all of the improvements that we have put into this week's build. As always, please reach out to us on our Discord Channel, Facebook, and the in-game feedback with your thoughts on how we're doing.
"Everybody ready to say goodbye to our Solar System?"
- Brian