Dark Horizons

Consisting of the past 6 weeks, we decided to give this body of work the name “Dark Horizons.” Vast underground areas have been added along with the expansion of many core features, such as adding recycling of items to the crafting system, so the name seemed to fit perfectly.

Sleep Mechanic (Single Player Only)

Now, in any bed or hut, you can choose to sleep for a few hours of game time. This kicks off a cinematic event where you can watch the time go by, compressing many hours into just a few seconds.

Approach a Bed and see the option to Sleep - Single Player Modes Only.

Cinematic showing time acceleration begins.

Drone Commands

The commands in the GPS section are now buttons instead of number key inputs. The Send to Position has been fixed up, and all commands are working.

Green cross hair appears for setting Drone position. Confirm by pressing "Set Position Target".

All Drone Commands:
1. Patrol - this will put the Drone into it's idle state.
2. Stay - this will force the Drone to freeze in its current position.
3. Follow - forces the Drone to go to and follow the player.
4. Send To Position - brings up a green cross hair on the GPS, and when confirmed the Drone will path to that position.

Biodome Lighting

Lights in the Biodome now work just like the HAB. Simply power up the Biodome with a Solar Panel and enter the dome to receive lighting.

Nicely lit Biodomes for night time crop viewing.

Space Ship Collision System

The Space Ship now detects when colliding with an obstacle while in a planetary atmosphere, at which point will automatically cut power to the engines and force the hover flight mode. This will allow the pilot to safely maneuver around obstacles and get back on course.

If you fly into a surface while in atmosphere, the Space Ship will detect this.

Once collision occurs, the Ship will go into hover mode, allowing you to safely pilot in all directions.

Help! I'm stuck in Space!!!

A few players have reported missing space ships or getting lost in space, and we are tracking down what may be causing this. however, if this happens to you, you can do the following with our really handy Console Command system:

1. While in game, press the "/" key to open up the Console Commands.
2. Type "warp". This command will allow you to warp to any planet surface.
3. Options will appear in the console command system to guide you.
4. Note in "warp" there's also an "unstuck" command.

Help! I lost my Vehicle/Drone/Item!!!

Also, if you lost data, such as a Vehicle or Item, you can also spawn them in with this tool:

1. Press "/" to open the Console Commands.
2. Type "spawn" then "vehicle" or "item".
3. Options will appear to allow you to warp in what you need.

LOD Fading

Unity has a fancy LOD system that actually works well and is performant, but does not have a native shader to handle the fade. We augmented this feature to allow for true dithered LOD fading, which completely removes the ugly LOD popping. On top of that, since it's 1 bit alpha, the LOD shader sorts perfectly with the atmosphere and is extremely fast to render.

VSync Off

We trying something else this week: forcing Vsync to off. This will uncap the frame rate. There's a few artifacts that this caused (like the logo flickering when loading a world) but it's really fun to play at 120 fps!

Crafting Unlock Progression

We are also trying a new progression system to add clarity to the tech tree progression. Simply build from your current build options to sequentially unlock new buildables. We have tried all kinds of fancy unlock systems and gates in the past, but sometimes simple is better. So far, we like the simplified approach, but let us know what you think.

Creatures Come Out At Night

Yet another gameplay balance idea we're testing, is having creatures mostly come out at night. The goal here is to have them start emerging while the sun is setting, then more and more come out under the shade of darkness. Oh yeah, night is a little darker too.

Improved First Person

Lots of updates here. We found the physics springs that run the boyancy on the camera were clamped at 30FPS, creating a jitter. We opened this up to an unlimited speed, which gives the result of silky smooth spring movement in first person. On top of that, we added a nicely modeled helmet interior and cleaned up the DOF settings.

UI Version 3.0

The in game UI got lots of treatment. For instance, you can now move while in menu. There's a status bar on the top, and we'll be making progress on getting more full screen with the UI panels, such as the skill tree.

Minimap and Map Markers

The mini-map is back with new features, the map now shows your placed markers. Simply right-click on any marker in the GPS to designate it as either Marker 1 or Marker 2, and these markers will display on your Minimap. You also have full Latitude and Longitude lines from before, and the map is a little smaller and more transparent, so it satisfies the goal we had to reduce its impact on the overall scene and exploration.

Creature Spawning

The day and night change from last week was a good experiment since it showed us that nights full of aliens is the right feel, but agree that it felt there was missing during the day.
We added a lot of detail to how and when various creatures would spawn through the day and night, and went through and adjusted all the creature spawns throughout the entire game. This allowed us to really dig into the ecosystem of the alien life, adjust what creatures appear where and when, which gives the world a more natural feel.

Unlock System and Proficiencies

We decided we like the Unlock System of buildables and revised the unlock logic further. We also added a unlock hint in the corner of each buildable that unlocks other buildables, which gives a nice subtle hint that these objects can be valuable to create.

We also added the Proficiency Points to the Skill Tree screen. How you receive skill points is still being decided - we may more this into an overall "Level Up" event, but for now this is a nice subtle evolution of this system.

Proteus 2 Mines and Hives

We've been building up the art for these for a while now, and are so happy to share these new beautifully dark and dank underground dungeons with you! We added a lot of dungeons to the world too. And there are multiple entrances and exits. And they're sprawling. And they're full of dangerous creatures!

Revamped Space Walk

Movement in low orbit has never been better, and both first and third-person modes have been upgraded.

Full Screen GPS

An expanded map system with more tools allows you to find what you're looking for. You can also place Map Markers through the right-click menu.

Smaller Things

There's lots more, like a crude battery that can be made inexpensively to power your flashlight, and an Emergency Light that automatically illuminates if your flashlight is empty. Lots of little bug fixes and polish. FINALLY fixed that pesky bug where you unequip when dragging inventory out of an equip slot. Lots of things like that.

Change List

Added - Sleep Mechanic

Added - Sleep option to Bed, Crab Hut, Skeliopod Hut, Debris Hut, and Inflatable Dome

Added - Sleep cinematic displaying local time acceleration

Added - Space Ship Collision System that autothrottles ship into hover mode on impact

Added - Biodome Lights

Added - Minimap to HUD

Added - Map Markers to Mini Map

Added - Right-click menu to Map Buttons

Added - All mineral descriptions to Map panel

Added - Updated Proteus 2 Mine Art

Added - Another art pass for Hives

Added - More Entry points for cave systems

Added - Creatures Zones now spawn different creature sets depending on location and time of day

Added - Readded and improved support for specific spawn groups to Creature Zones

Added - Decorated mine entrances

Added - Far LOD management for persistent objects

Added - Variants of Meteors to drop all types of ores

Added - Meteors now fall on Lutari, and at a much higher rate than on proteus

Added - Additional light to the top of the Spaceship to better highlight it at night when it's headlights are on

Added - Assault Rifle to random loot crates

Added - Automatic unlocking of already placed buildables

Added - Unlock icon to build buttons to denote buildables that unlock additional tech tree stages

Added - Custom option to toggle new Progression Buildable Unlock system

Added - Fullscreen support for GPS panel

Added - Crude Battery craftable in the Workbench that can power the flashlight at 25% efficiency

Added - Power Cells can be used as a power source for the flashlight at 50% efficiency

Added - When Flashlight energy is depleted, an emergency light on the suit will now activate, providing a small amount of light just around the suit

Added - Entry trigger to all huts to make third-person interaction easier

Added - Teleport feature to Third Person Camera for going in and out of dungeons

Added - Event to respawn to properly display all scenery

Added - Mouse over the display to inventory

Added - Support for hand-placed manually configured repairables for use in missions

Added - More features to voice log system for use in missions

Added - Entrances and exits to all mines on Proteus 2

Added - Hit interaction to rock walls

Added - Full-screen GPS

Added - Movement while in UI modes

Added - Big optimization pass

Added - Fullscreen support for GPS panel

Added - New progressive buildable unlock system

Added - Map Markers to Mini Map

Added - FOV slider to first-person camera

Added - FOV slider to third-person camera

Added - Variants of Meteors to drop all types of ores

Added - Updated Proteus 2 Mine Art

Added - Another art pass for Hives

Added - Roll for spacewalk

Added - Near camera for improved first-person detail

Added - Key binding to inventory equip slots

Added - Key Binding option back into in-game Options Panel

Added - Moving HUD, based on camera rotation

Added - Option to turn off ambient camera movement

Added - AimIK to CrabMonster

Added - Max time parameter to Seek task to prevent getting stuck in rocks when backing up

Added - Weather volume to sound mixer

Added - Slider to weather volume

Added - Post-processing volume to near camera

Added - Prefab for game settings UI

Added - Tool materials

Added - Space dust to increase movement visibility while in space

Added - Updated news screen with notification about build progression system

Added - Collision LOD system

Added - LOD fading shader

Added - Collision optimizations for dungeons and low orbit

Added - Collision optimizations to all minerals

Added - New textures to Proteus ground

Added - Sound to on person crafting

Added - New interior helmet art

Added - Optimized first-person helmet interior

Added - Helmet interior to first-person camera rig

Added - Improvements to first-person helmet interior

Added - New rotation methods for directional and strafe rotation to AI

Added - Configured all movement behavior tasks to properly utilize the interface rotation method

Added - Optimized Sand Dunes

Added - Scalar to creature species animation speed

Added - Minimap to HUD

Added - Right-click menu to Map Buttons

Added - All mineral descriptions to Map panel

Added - More Entry points for cave systems

Added - Creatures Zones now spawn different creature sets depending on location and time of day

Added - Readded and improved support for specific spawn groups to Creature Zones

Added - Decorated mine entrances

Added - Far LOD management for persistent objects

Added - Meteors now fall on Lutari, and at a much higher rate than on proteus

Added - Additional light to the top of the Spaceship to better highlight it at night when it's headlights are on

Added - Assault Rifle to random loot crates

Added - Automatic unlocking of already placed buildables

Added - Unlock icon to build buttons to denote buildables that unlock additional tech tree stages

Added - Custom option to toggle new Progression Buildable Unlock system

Added - Crude Battery craftable in the Workbench that can power the flashlight at 25% efficiency

Added - Power Cells can be used as a power source for the flashlight at 50% efficiency

Added - When Flashlight energy is depleted, an emergency light on the suit will now activate, providing a small amount of light just around the suit

Added - Entry trigger to all huts to make third-person interaction easier

Added - Teleport feature to Third Person Camera for going in and out of dungeons

Added - Event to respawn to properly display all scenery

Added - Mouse over the display to inventory

Added - Support for hand-placed manually configured repairables for use in missions

Added - More features to voice log system for use in missions

Added - Entrances and exits to all mines on Proteus 2

Added - Hit interaction to rock walls

Added - New Item Recycle system, allowing the dismantling of items for various resources

Added - Low Tech Recycle, High Tech Recycle, and Metallurgy as unlockable abilities to the skill tree

Added - Workbench now supports Basic, Low Tech, and High Tech recycling

Added - Forge now supports Metallurgy (Alloy recycling)

Added - Tools inventory buttons now show Harvest Type such as Sharp, Blunt, Surgical

Added - Support for adding and remove Build Goals through Right Click Menu

Added - Proper location names for Aziel

Added - Improved Aziel planet rendering

Added - Improved Zer planet rendering

Added - More detail on loading levels in readout

Added - Creature health indicator is now back on

Added - Set all planets to have proper map location names

Added - Underground Soundtrack

Added - Added support to have more detailed LODs on Minerals

Added - World boundaries back in on Proteus 2 Site B

Added - Rocks in mine pits to allow traversal out of pits

Added - Sleep Mechanic

Added - Sleep option to Bed, Crab Hut, Skeliopod Hut, Debris Hut and Inflatable Dome

Added - Sleep cinematic displaying local time acceleration

Added - Space Ship Collision System that auto throttles ship into hover mode on impact

Added - Biodome Lights

Added - Custom map markers are now removable

Changed - All Drone commands are now buttons in the GPS instead of number key inputs

Changed - Lowered volume on Biodome Climate Controller

Changed - Reorganized buildable unlocks to be in a few large stages instead of smaller unlock paths, allowing more freedom in progression

Changed - Creatures will once again spawn at all times of the day, different creatures will spawn at different times

Changed - Improved look sensitivity with a game controller

Changed - Moved a creature spawn zone that intersected with a spawn point to instead be nearby

Changed - Moved a few creature zones to ensured each spawn point has at least 1 nearby spawn zone

Changed - Increased size of Battery charge meter in HUD

Changed - Disabled creature dust particles at night until their lighting is fixed

Changed - Improved Buggie UI

Changed - Improved Buggie sound

Changed - Improved Buggie handling and wheel sizes

Changed - Adjusted Drone Map UI

Changed - Meteors are now more common on Zer

Changed - Reduced prevalence of Radar Scanner in loot crates

Changed - Increase prevalence of Broken Wires in loot crates

Changed - Branches now have less weight

Changed - Leather now has less weight

Changed - Space Debris Chest now has 18 inventory slots

Changed - Silver material to more shiny

Changed - Weather sounds now fade faster to keep up with visuals

Changed - Increased size of unlock icon on the build button

Changed - Various Texture optimizations

Changed - Optimized various sounds

Changed - Updated Aziel Mines and updated wall/floor materials

Changed - Updated Aziel Distance Terrain

Changed - Optimized Aziel terrain

Changed - Optimized Lutari terrain

Changed - Optimized Proteus 2 terrain

Changed - Optimized establishing shot camera

Changed - Optimized Proteus 2 world art scene

Changed - Increased flight speed of Flying Skeliopod

Changed - Map icons buttons to click instead of mouseover

Changed - Adjusted Arachnoid IK values

Changed - Added improved transitions to Crab Monster animations

Changed - Tweaked hunger and thirst drains

Changed - Improved first-person camera springs to higher frame rate

Changed - Optimized HUD to one canvas

Changed - Set build item to move much snappier

Changed - Optimized minimap

Changed - Widened compass

Changed - Optimized all mineral colliders

Changed - Optimized all environment base colliders

Changed - Optimized all Proteus 2 environment rock colliders

Changed - Removed the need to crouch when walking down a slope

Changed - Optimized all plant colliders

Changed - Proteus fruit and berry balance tweaks

Changed - Up res pod and map textures

Changed - Various UI layout changes

Changed - Optimized sand dunes

Changed - Updated all creature prefabs and creature behavior trees to utilize proper rotation speeds and styles

Changed - Optimized various creature calculations to improve framerates

Changed - Optimized various vehicle calculations while they are not piloted to improve framerates

Changed - Ground fitter on creatures to be more performant and look a bit less robotic, more organic

Changed - Skeliopod sped up rotations

Changed - Lower worm earthquake intensity

Changed - Improved third-person camera and movement in space

Changed - Improved first-person camera and movement in space

Changed - Improved camera orientation when switching modes while in space

Changed - Turned off weapon unequip while in space

Changed - Now that wreckage crates are persistent, they can be opened after they have been emptied, previously they could only be salvaged

Changed - Improved build particle to be more vibrant

Changed - Adjusted all first-person items, weapons, and tools to use the new camera

Changed - DOF to slightly fade from near focus on first-person arms

Changed - Updated Rover salvageable model

Changed - Updated and optimized salvage satellite

Changed - Updated Item, Structure, and Utility icons

Changed - Updated Tool Melee items with better art

Changed - Updated Tool Icons

Changed - Updated Structures/BuildIcons with Particles and Sounds

Changed - Updated Aziel Occlusion data, low orbit atmosphere, and planet art

Changed - Updated Aziel Rock materials

Changed - Optimized creature despawn check

Changed - Reorganized buildable unlocks to be in a few large stages instead of smaller unlock paths, allowing more freedom in the progression

Changed - Creatures will once again spawn at all times of the day, different creatures will spawn at different times

Changed - Improved look sensitivity with a game controller

Changed - Moved a creature spawn zone that intersected with a spawn point to instead be nearby

Changed - Moved a few creature zones to ensured each spawn point has at least 1 nearby spawn zone

Changed - Increased size of Battery charge meter in HUD

Changed - Disabled creature dust particles at night until their lighting is fixed

Changed - Improved Buggie UI

Changed - Improved Buggie sound

Changed - Improved Buggie handling and wheel sizes

Changed - Adjusted Drone Map UI

Changed - Meteors are now more common on Zer

Changed - Reduced prevalence of Radar Scanner in loot crates

Changed - Increase prevalence of Broken Wires in loot crates

Changed - Branches now have less weight

Changed - Leather now has less weight

Changed - Space Debris Chest now has 18 inventory slots

Changed - Silver material to more shiny

Changed - Weather sounds now fade faster to keep up with visuals

Changed - Increased size of unlock icon on the build button

Changed - Various Texture optimizations

Changed - Optimized various sounds

Changed - Updated Aziel Mines and updated wall/floor materials

Changed - Updated Aziel Distance Terrain

Changed - Optimized Aziel terrain

Changed - Optimized Lutari terrain

Changed - Optimized Proteus 2 terrain

Changed - Optimized establishing shot camera

Changed - Optimized Proteus 2 world art scene

Changed - Increased flight speed of Flying Skeliopod

Changed - Map icons buttons to click instead of mouseover

Changed - Adjusted Arachnoid IK values

Changed - Added improved transitions to Crab Monster animations

Changed - Turned off colliders on Space Station Airlock doors when opening and closing

Changed - Inflatable Dome Kit now requires 4 Cloth Bundles instead of 1

Changed - Removed Space Debris conversion recipe from Furnace (replaced by Recycle system)

Changed - Removed Scrap Hinge conversion recipe from Workbench (replaced by Recycle system)

Changed - Kitchen is now unlocked by building a Habitat

Changed - Bin and Smart Bin are now unlocked by building a Bio Dome

Changed - Inflatable Dome now replenishes 30 hit points when activated

Changed - All Huts now replenish 15 hit points when activated

Changed - Bed now fully replenishes hit points when activated

Changed - Set player to die if falling from a really high distance

Changed - Adjustment to Sprint speed to be a little more realistic

Changed - Set VSync back on for now, may create an option for this

Changed - Temporarily turned off creature foot camera shake

Changed - Texture and sound optimizations

Changed - Aziel terrain specularity adjustments

Changed - Limited Compass to display up to 3 names on merged markers

Changed - Increased speed of Repair Tools

Changed - All Drone commands are now buttons in the GPS instead of number key inputs

Changed - Lowered volume on Biodome Climate Controller

Changed - Improved positioning of Creature Health Indicator

Fixed - Drone commands

Fixed - Moving inventory off an equip slot now forces the player to unequip an item

Fixed - Alien Population slider is now respected and will multiply how many creatures are spawned from Creature Zones

Fixed - Flashlight energy is now persistent and no longer resets upon login

Fixed - Added additional colliders to the rear legs and the underside of the Colossus so it is easier to hit while near the creature

Fixed - Repairable colliders should now properly reenable when the player is nearby

Fixed - Player death animation now properly plays

Fixed - Battery meter now properly displays battery charge

Fixed - Clock in HUD now displays correct in-game time

Fixed - Proficiencies are now properly visible within the skills screen

Fixed - Spelling error for Fluorine in many locations

Fixed - Moved space debris on proteus that was stuck inside rocks

Fixed - Small Crates Appliance should be easier to interact with

Fixed - Repairable colliders should no longer randomly be disabled

Fixed - Should no longer spawn beneath a structure when logging out inside or above said structure

Fixed - Repaired structures are now properly unlocked as buildables after repaired

Fixed - Undiscovered structures can now be properly examined

Fixed - Crab scythe should now properly inflict damage on all intended targets

Fixed - Dismantling buildables with upgrades in the same session they are crafted should now properly return all used items

Fixed - Set map screen canvas size to properly border icons

Fixed - Set Easter Egg icons to appear on the map

Fixed - Various errors that were causing players to be unable to load their worlds

Fixed - Hydrocarbon Solution interactions

Fixed - Weapon and tool interaction when item lost durability

Fixed - Red Berry Tree collision with LOD system

Fixed - Gem Leaf fruit should no longer fall through the map

Fixed - Autowalk will now properly walk instead of sprint

Fixed - Fixed broken Forge Upgrades