Experimental Build v05.509

*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.

Hello explorers! This experimental build includes the new Physically Based Creature AI, along with important gameplay balancing tweaks to shape the overall experience of the game.

Physically Based Creatures

Months in the making, I am proud to introduce our first creature to receive the new AI treatment. What does "Physically Based AI" entail? It means that the creature is treated and processed as a physics object, with all the forces and collisions in the world correctly acting correctly upon it.

What does Physically Based Creatures get us? Creatures will now properly respect defensive walls, structures, utilities and anything that has collision. Creatures can now even be run over by vehicles! Also, no longer restricted to the Pathfinding Navmesh, creatures can now traverse anywhere in the world. It also means we can eventually remove the nav meshes - a huge optimization and will lead to us being able to continue with ground deformation when building large structures.

In addition to driving these creatures by physics, the actual behaviors have also been updated. Larvae will sprint at you when coming in for an attack, circle your base, and back away quickly. They've become feisty little buggers, and this AI system is far more easily expanded and less error prone than solutions we've used in the past.

Creatures are also spawned more at night, creating a "explore by day, defend by night" feeling.

Oxygen Matters Now, A Lot

Automatic replenishing of Oxygen has been moved to a Suit Attachment. This adds value to the attachment while doing something critical to gameplay - you will now be very "tethered" to your base. You will need to really plan your expeditions, going further and further with each stage of your journey. This also adds lots of value to vehicles.

Pod Crash and Furnace Now Give Oxygen

To balance the Oxygen usage, the crashed Pod contains two tanks on board that can be forever used to refill some oxygen. Once you build a Furnace, it refills your oxygen even more. Of course, once you have a HAB or enclosed vehicles like the Rover oxygen will be fully replenished.

Overall, we find this gives much more of a feeling of being in space, on another planet, and adds lots of interesting strategy.

Mission Refinements

The opening missions have been tweaked to reflect the various changes and tweaks to the balancing. More tweaking will continue as we go, eventually going into the later "levels" of the game.

Durability is Much More of A Thing

Durability balancing, screen indications, and Repair Tables have all been adjusted to create a feeling of being mindful of your gear and the Maintenace of it. This also reinforces the feeling of safety when back at the base, providing a chance to refill oxygen, fix up your gear, and reinforce your base from attacks.

Workbench Can Now Repair By Default

To balance the updated durability system, repairing has been added to the Workbench inherently. The Repair Table is still an upgrade, and now does even more repairing per repair usage, adding a time saving value to the upgrade.

Discovery Harvesting Yields Are Now Unlocked

Keeping the act of Discovering by interacting for the first time, we went ahead and removed the locks per weapon type to allow for strategy when approaching a plant or creature. Using various weapons and tools will yield different resources, and it makes sense that as a scientific explorer this information would be included in the discovery.

Dust Storms Now Damage Structures

Furthering the feeling of maintenance and the shelter of your base, along with pushing the vulnerability and dangers of survival on a distant planet, damage by weather pattern has been added. The dust storms on Proteus 2 now can damage your base objects, and Maintenace of these objects will be vital to your survival.

This also sets up possibilities for more skills and tool advantages, like being able to repair past 100% or being able to build objects that are impervious to storms.

Clearer Interactions

Just some nice quality of life displays to illustrate how much time until an action can occur, or how many objects left in a tree.

Updated Main Menu

Lots of polish on the Character Select Screens across all the modes, along with clean up of the Options area.

Updated Language Localization

Working with our community, the language files have been updated. As development occurs, new words need to be added to localization, so you still might see some words that remain in English. However, these will all be addressed by the time we leave Early Access.

Minor Balancing Throughout

Many minor balancing tweaks, for example Small Radar Dish range has been slightly expanded.

Lots of Fixes

Stars now display properly in space. Ownership blocking in multiplayer is fixed. Salvaging bugs in multiplayer are fixed. Here's the full list:

Change List

Added build small satellite dish mission

Added Oxygen replenishing feature to Workbench

Added color coding to replenish triggers

Added display to show how much time is remaining on cooldowns

Added color coded info to harvesting amounts of plants and trees

Added support for harvestable segments to be skinned

Added support for crafting tables to have the option of repairing functionality

Added support to get upgrade from buildable objects in code

Added support for durability hit flash on item icons

Added support to display quick slots when receiving a durability penalty

Added Repair tables now display the amount of repair and modifier

Added more intelligent creature spawning to allow balance frequency of encounters and difficulty

Added support to spawn any creature from under the ground

Added legacy AStar support to new AI behaviors

Added proper hit stunning of creatures

Added prop blood spawning when hitting creatures

Added skinning support to consumable items

Added skinning action to player control system

Added further support for skinning creatures across weapon system

Added debug support to display interface object

Added player sounds for getting hurt in various ways

Added grunt sound when taking damage from fall

Added button down holding interface for crafting actions

Added support to play skinning animations on creatures when harvesting

Added support to flash durability penalty

Added and polished fading in and out throughout Main Menu

Added gas to geysers for testing/developing modes

Added support to properly record all structures in save game display

Added support to properly record all utilities in save game display

Added support to damage structures during weather patterns

Added support to change brightness of stars based on location and time

Added creature skinning animation in 3rd person

Added structures and utilities icons to properly display in Avatar Selection screen

Added Larvae animations

Added upgraded blood FX to creature hits

Changed Updated localization files

Changed Updated Main Menu

Changed Updated Character Select screen in Main Menu

Changed Updated language interface in Options

Changed Updated Options interface

Changed Updated Key Binding interface

Changed Updated Server Buttons in Main Menu

Changed Updated Character Buttons in Main Menu

Changed oxygen no longer replenished automatically

Changed Improvements to Mission Interface

Changed Improvements to inventory object icons

Changed Updated terrain files

Changed Rebalancing of crash site pod objects

Changed Minor adjustments and fixes to some structures and vehicles

Changed Small Satellite Dish now has a larger detection radius

Changed Reordered intro missions slightly

Changed Minor changes to recipes in Workbench

Changed Forge required much less to build

Changed Ghost and Sentry have been upgraded to retro fit the new AI system

Changed Charred Alen Bits now give more nutrition

Changed Oxygenator now can refill oxygen completely

Changed Updated Larvae to new physically based AI

Changed Updated Player to include all new systems

Changed Updated repair table function to work with all systems

Changed utility upgrades to build automatically and not need the blueprint interface

Changed creature indicators to only display health when hit

Changed Improved knockback on creatures

Changed Improved death ragdoll on creatures

Changed Increased durability usage when firing guns

Changed Increased durability usage when repairing and salvaging

Changed Balancing of player sound

Changed Less player breathing in idle and low impact states

Changed More player breathing sound when hurt or in danger

Changed Increased heart sound during stamina penalty

Changed Increased footstep sounds

Changed Lessened amount of hunger and oxygen used when using melee weapons and chisels

Changed balancing of durability rules

Changed Set Player Leveling to have a more steep XP curve

Changed mouse cursor to no longer turn off in map mode or in character rotation

Cleaned up game hints in load screens

Changed Hut and Bed saving text to "Save Successful" instead of "Location Saved"

Changed Improved 3rd person character animations

Changed Improved starting and stopping in 3rd person

Changed Audiomixer settings for player sounds

Changed Updated soundtracks for all levels

Changed Updated particle shaders

Changed Updated blood shaders

Changed Updated all Geyser Particle Systems

Changed Updated grass shaders

Fixed data saving on Crash Site

Fixed Zinc mineral LODs no long pop

Fixed Furnace now has proper icons for all upgrades

Fixed Workbench upgrade icons

Fixed to Crash Site object save game data

Fixed durability usage on equipped items

Fixed Clean up of one shot audio functions

Fixed null instances on PF particle systems

Fixed creatures spazing out in ragdoll form

Fixed Clean up of new AI system debug target indicators

Fixed Cleaned up durability system on inventory objects

Fixed left hand in IK system when holding rifles

Fixed to Timed Destroy function

Fixed Cleaned up creature damage system to show particles

Fixed Cleaned up planet names displayed from save games

Fixed Minor material fixes

Removed Royalty Free Music

Removed Collect hide mission

Removed the building of kits for various objects

Removed ownership on repairable objects for now

Removed storage ownership for now

Removed notice that oxygen is replenishing

Removed unneeded debug log

Removed harvesting locks after discovering new plant or creature

Removed ownership on fuel systems

Removed ownership when salvaging

Removed unneeded collision detection from interface system

Removed vehicle ownership for now

Removed ownership on elevators for now

Removed ownership from repairing structures

Overall, this update marks a very important move in the design of the game by clarifying the gameplay and emphasizing the survival aspect. The goal here is to not make it "harder", but to add strategy, goals, and a feeling of advancement through the experience.