Survivalist: Invisible Strain News

Wow, it's already the second anniversary of this game's launch! (I better hurry up and finish it) I thought I'd celebrate by pushing v154 out of publicbeta and into the main branch. This means everyone will now be on the same version for now. The biggest changes in this branch were probably the addition of chickens, and the AI changes that mean people run inside their bases when under attack. But there are also a ton of bug fixes and tweaks.





It's going to take me a while to get the next patch released. The main thing I'm currently working on is interactions with other communities, including alliances! The idea is the largest looter communities will harass you a bit more than they currently do, but you'll be able to ally with other communities in order to fight back and overthrow the looters (and help people out generally). This will hopefully help give you more goals and feeling of progression as you build your network of alliances.

There will also be some other long-requested features such as being able to surrender to the AI if you started a war with them, and being able to knock on their doors to attract attention, and of course more bug fixes. Anyway, I think it'll be easier for me to work on all these things together and release them in one go, rather than a patch per week, so that's why it's going to be a while before the next patch. But when it does come, it'll be a big one :)

Thanks everyone for buying the game and sticking with it for two years, sending feedback, making mods and adding translations!

Hello, it's patch time - this is one of those "fix random things" patches for publicbeta. I found there was an out of sync error in v150 so I still can't move it to the main branch, fingers crossed for next time. I also worked some more on the AI changes from last patch.

I've tried to make it so building stuff is a little bit faster, particularly fences. People have been asking me for a long time to make your characters get multiple resources at a time when putting up fences (e.g. get as much wood as you can before making the journey back, instead of just getting one piece of wood, returning to the fence and building one fence piece, then going back to get another piece of wood), so I've done that. Also I've just reduced the time it takes in the building animation for a lot of buildings.

There are some things in this game that I think are a bit too unforgiving, you might see me tweak those over time. One is how invisible strain converts everyone in your community before turning, I've changed it to only convert half of them, which is still pretty brutal ;)

Here's the full change list:

• When building fences, characters will be able to collect the resources they need for multiple fence pieces (as long as they fit in their inventory) instead of just doing it one by one
  
• Reduced time to build most buildings, and slightly lowered skill requirements to build Nitrary and pistol/shotgun ammo
  
• Make vehicles capturable, damageable, and repairable, with steel ingots
  
• Fix for crafters taking flint from cooks who need it to light fires
  
• Fix up savegames that used mods where crop types were deleted
  
• Changed invisible strain to activate when over half your community are converted, instead of all of them
  
• Added some extra bits to the Lost Item quest
  
• Fixes for AI often staying in your base when you order them to attack someone
  
• Try to stop NPCs from being attracted too easily outside their bases by using dead comrades as bait
  
• Added debug option in custom map editor to control infection type in town markers
  
• Fix for not being able to see healthbars of damaged fences in command mode
  
• Fix for animal feeders harvesting crops when policy is set to not feed to animals
  
• Picking up drinking bowl always returns it to your inventory
  
• Fix for angle slider not working in path editor
  
• Fix for guards in watchtowers sometimes continually shooting the wall in front of them
  
• Out of sync fix
  

EDIT: a quick follow-up patch, v153:

• Fix for NPCs going to the edge of the map sometimes when alerted
  
• Fix for stealth damage multiplier being applied when AI enemies damage the player
  
• Fix for guards not reacting to arrows shot at them from stealth but missing and hitting their watchtower
  
• Added Crafting Station Type field to recipes
  
• Crash fix in edit story settings menu
  

[h3]What's this publicbeta thing?[/h3]
v153 will be in the "publicbeta" branch for a while, before pushing it to the main game. If you want to try the latest features as they come out (and help test them!) it's a good idea to start using this branch. But keep in mind:

• Because it's the bleeding edge it could be less stable
  
• If you want to be able to play online co-op with someone you'll need to be on the same version as them
  
• If you go back from the "publicbeta" branch to the main branch you may not be able to load savegames created on "publicbeta".

To use publicbeta, just right-click on Survivalist: Invisible Strain in your Steam library and go to Properties, then Betas and in the drop-down select "publicbeta".

There's a lot of stuff in this patch but the biggest change is that I've been working on the AI to make characters run inside their bases when under attack, if the base is nearby. This applies to both the player's community and the AI settlements. (In the player's case, it obviously doesn't apply if you set the gates to Always Closed or Always Open). I also fixed some bugs that made the NPCs in the AI settlements run outside their bases to fight the enemy.



Along with some farming fixes, the aim is to try and make AI settlements less vulnerable to zombie attacks or dying of cold or hunger if you play for a long time. I'm not 100% sure if I've fixed it yet, but hopefully it helps. From my playthroughs, they seem to be managing so far, but let me know if you have a playthrough from v150 where you see a lot of AI communities dying.

Besides that there's a lot of fixes for various different glitches, particularly involving chickens and AI:

• Added AI for characters in combat near their bases to run inside the gates, also fixed a bug that made NPCs run out of their settlements
  
• Ensure AI Farmers have farming skill level 3
  
• Fix for characters inside a base continually shouting 'we're under attack' because enemies are outside the gates
  
• Stop NPCs with recurring crafting or cooking role from saying 'finished' each time, as it gets annoying
  
• Korean, Hungarian and Brazilian Portuguese translations updated
  
• Some fixes for chickens talking etc
  
• Added an option to slaughter chickens
  
• Made picking up and dropping living chickens less glitchy-looking
  
• Made chickens cheaper, and improve NPC detection of you stealing them
  
• Added policy option for whether food can be fed to animals
  
• Delete roaming hordes if they get stuck for a long time
  
• Fix for some roaming hordes spawning at any road junction instead of just map entrances
  
• You can only pay respects at graves of characters whose name you knew
  
• Made it possible to walk over grave so you can't use them as walls
  
• When saving manually from the menus, don't allow overwriting of quicksave, autosave or token save slots
  
• Fix for invisible strain NPCs attacking activated zombies
  
• Allowing talking to characters who are walking somewhere to ask someone for food etc
  
• When someone appears in the PiP who is not of your community, pressing Tab will control the person they are talking to if possible, or take you to them in fly mode if not
  
• Re-equip previous equipment if you automatically changed equipment to skin a deer, chop down a tree, etc
  
• Prefer to go round waist high walls instead of over them, if the path isn't too long
  
• Stop playing panting sound when game is paused
  
• Some grammar fixes
  
• Added colored biohazard symbols to antigen icons to try to make them more easily distinguishable
  
• Fix for crash when loading some pre-v146 savegames
  

I wanted to move v149 to the main branch but it turns out it had a crash when upgrading some pre-v146 savegames, so it'll have to wait. Chickens will have to stay out in publicbeta for a while longer :-P

[h3]What's this publicbeta thing?[/h3]
v150 will be in the "publicbeta" branch for a while, before pushing it to the main game. If you want to try the latest features as they come out (and help test them!) it's a good idea to start using this branch. But keep in mind:

• Because it's the bleeding edge it could be less stable
  
• If you want to be able to play online co-op with someone you'll need to be on the same version as them
  
• If you go back from the "publicbeta" branch to the main branch you may not be able to load savegames created on "publicbeta".

To use publicbeta, just right-click on Survivalist: Invisible Strain in your Steam library and go to Properties, then Betas and in the drop-down select "publicbeta".

Another small patch, mostly bug-fixing:

• Italian translation updated
  
• Fix for leg armor on green strain zombies taking almost no damage
  
• Fix for ambient zombies not spawning sometimes when you start, particularly when you have few settlements
  
• Fix up old savegames so NPCs don't blame you for molotovs they threw at their own fences, before that was fixed in v148
  
• Fix for chickens being assigned roles in AI settlements
  
• If chickens in AI settlements die, the NPCs will skin them rather than burying them
  
• Fix for enemies not surrendering if they have chickens
  
• Fix for not being able to hit people with snowballs
  
• Crash fix
  

[h3]What's this publicbeta thing?[/h3]
v149 will be in the "publicbeta" branch for a while, before pushing it to the main game. If you want to try the latest features as they come out (and help test them!) it's a good idea to start using this branch. But keep in mind:

• Because it's the bleeding edge it could be less stable
  
• If you want to be able to play online co-op with someone you'll need to be on the same version as them
  
• If you go back from the "publicbeta" branch to the main branch you may not be able to load savegames created on "publicbeta".

To use publicbeta, just right-click on Survivalist: Invisible Strain in your Steam library and go to Properties, then Betas and in the drop-down select "publicbeta".

This is a small bug-fixing patch to tidy up some issues with the chickens, and fix a few of the causes of NPCs attacking you seemingly for no reason. Here's the changelist:

• Fix for people not taking eggs from chicken coop
  
• Fix for pumpkins still being plantable
  
• Fix for case where farmers sometimes got into a loop trying to deposit harvest
  
• Fix for NPC getting stuck digging grave
  
• Stop NPCs from blaming you for the death of someone nearby who died of hunger/thirst/cold/sleep deprivation
  
• Stop molotovs and pipe bombs thrown by AI from damaging friendly buildings even if splash damage is on
  
• Fix for chickens in AI settlements dying of thirst
  

[h3]What's this publicbeta thing?[/h3]
v148 will be in the "publicbeta" branch for a while, before pushing it to the main game. If you want to try the latest features as they come out (and help test them!) it's a good idea to start using this branch. But keep in mind:

• Because it's the bleeding edge it could be less stable
  
• If you want to be able to play online co-op with someone you'll need to be on the same version as them
  
• If you go back from the "publicbeta" branch to the main branch you may not be able to load savegames created on "publicbeta".

To use publicbeta, just right-click on Survivalist: Invisible Strain in your Steam library and go to Properties, then Betas and in the drop-down select "publicbeta".