Survivalist: Invisible Strain News

Hey it's patch day! This one is mainly focused on adding some features to Command Mode and the Map Screen, which haven't had much love for a while. In particular, you can drag a box to select characters and set up zones via the map screen. This makes it a lot more convenient to set zones.



You've also got some new commands like Group Follow Me, which tells everyone you've selected to follow you (or stop following you). So you don't have to individually click on everyone you want to follow you anymore. These sorts of things I always felt were missing.



I've changed some of the controls slightly. In order to make the map screen and Command mode a bit more consistent with each other, I've made the drag-select button the right-click on the mouse (or X on Steam Deck/XBox gamepad) by default. Left-clicking and dragging now moves the camera on both Command Mode and on the map.

I've also added the ability to set 5 different colored map markers, whereas previously you could only set one. Because of all the new functions I've overloaded the map marker button, previously right-click, to open a context menu from which you can set markers but also set zones and other stuff.

That's the main stuff, here's the full list:

• Added options in action menu in command mode, and the map screen, for: Select Followers, Select Everyone, Group Follow Me, Group Stop Following Me, Copy Zone to Group
  
• Right clicking on the map screen now opens a menu from which you can set markers also set/pause/resume zones, along with the above actions
  
• Allow you to set multiple map markers, with different colors, on the map screen
  
• Allow you to right-click and drag a selection box on the map screen, also made Command Mode consistent with map screen by using left-click drag to move the camera, right-click drag to draw a selection box
  
• Allow you to drag-select allies as well as your own community members (so allies can be more easily ordered to follow/stop following you)
  
• Current character path and zones now shown on map screen
  
• Added Control option to action menu when in Command Mode hovering over a vehicle with someone driving it
  
• Made it possible to hover over invaders sidebar on map screen with gamepad controls
  
• Made it possible to take over crop zones from defeated enemy bases
  
• Made it possible to abandon vehicles, and buildings that previously could only be destroyed
  
• Tweaks to feuding to try and make chain reactions of brawls with the same person a bit less likely
  
• Gray targeting reticule when enemy is dead
  
• Show 'Pick Up (Stealing)' on action menu if picking up a body is likely to result in their community members attacking you
  
• Added support for props and equipment having different genders in different languages (e.g. French vs Portuguese)
  
• Added support for modders to add gloves as a clothing type
  
• Fix for people in large communities continuing feuds immediately after being restrained
  
• Fix for unconscious passengers in your vehicle being gibbed by traps if you drive over them
  
• Fix for compass and wind direction being wrong when Minimap Rotation Enabled is off
  
• Fix for Right Stick Click button prompt showing as a question mark on Steam Deck
  
• Fix for some buildings not belonging to the right community in Story Mode
  
• Fix for Emma not being recruitable after you took her green pass allocation
  
• Fix for Kelly continuing to sit down and reminisce in Wishkey Crossing after you talked to her
  
• Fix for fetch quest books such as Advanced Archery being stackable which meant the whole stack got handed over when completing the quest
  
• Fixes for Sharp Objects quest not progressing in some situations
  
• Fix for Highway Patrol base being occupied by raiders or refugees if you don't tell Carter about it for a while
  
• Fix for missing version mismatch error message
  
• Fixes for some mod-related crashes
  
• Updated French, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Lithuanian, Russian and Simplified Chinese translations
  

And v217 is now in the main branch! That's got stuff like supersampling, the ability to text search for mods, new rifle animations and lot of tweaks and bug fixes.



EDIT - released a quick follow-up patch in publicbeta, v219, to fix a crash.

[h3]What's this publicbeta thing?[/h3]
v219 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".

Hello, this is just a bug-fixing patch as I'm still trying to get the build in a satisfactory state so I can push the latest changes from publicbeta to the main branch. Some small fixes, some bigger ones. Here's the changelist:

• Added a timeout and a distance from corpse check for NPCs blaming the player for leading zombies to a team-mate who was killed by zombies
  
• Store empty containers that have a liquid contents policy set in the place you would store them if they were full
  
• When looking for a container to store some liquid in, prefer those with a contents policy for that liquid even if they are in further away buildings
  
• You can still get the Sole Survivor achievement if you have chickens
  
• Tweaked looter camp probability on a new map when you hit the road
  
• Stop community members from talking about camp hygiene and such if you don't have a camp, or if they are new
  
• If someone is feuding with you they can chase you outside of their own gates, but not if you are in fisticuffs
  
• Fix for Charlie Gant starting outside his prison
  
• Fix for Kelly feuding with Carter just before he blows up the gate and stopping the Vanished quest from progressing
  
• Fix for refugees sometimes joining you if their group is widely separated
  
• Fix for fog of war remaining around an ally if they are buried soon after they die
  
• Fixes for stuck character rescue code
  
• Fix for being able to remotely Eat/Drink/Use items in buildings we aren't in by opening the building inventory in Command Mode
  
• Possible fix for terrain cache issues
  
• Crash fixes
  
• Include list of active mods at bottom of crash reports
  
• Added Age to speech param types and added uniqueID as a parameter to EvaluateSpeechParams for modders
  
• Updated French, Hungarian, Japanese, Latin American Spanish, Russian and Simplified Chinese translations
  

[h3]What's this publicbeta thing?[/h3]
v217 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".

Hey everyone, it's a small-ish new patch in publicbeta. I've added two-handed rifle animations for when crouching and walking or running:



I've moved Story Mode to the top item in the menu, for English and Japanese, which were the two languages with complete translations as of last week (though some others are close). I've noticed some people getting put off the game recently due to sandbox mode throwing them in at the deep end, getting surrounded by zombies without enough knowledge of the game mechanics to evade them. That's part of what Story Mode was intended to address, so I'm going to try this in the hopes newbies start with it, and see how that goes.



I've seen a few people wishing they could arm the NPCs by selling them weapons etc, without them selling them on next time they restock. So I've tried to ensure they won't sell their best ranged and melee weapon, or seeds or food if their community is short.

The rest is mostly bug fixes. Here's the full change list:

• Added crouching idle/walk/run animations for rifles that hold it with two hands while not aiming
  
• Made Story Mode top option when starting a new game in English and Japanese (i.e. languages where translation is complete)
  
• Ensure settlement has at least one person prepared to do fisticuffs if it is the target of a chicken heist quest
  
• Made it possible for NPCs in a relationship to hug when greeting sometimes (like the player can), thus getting the flirted successfully memory and keeping their approval high
  
• Made selection and movement zone boxes thicker so they're more visible especially in supersampling mode
  
• Include 'invaders approaching' speeches in log
  
• Stop NPCs from selling on the best weapons, backpacks etc, or seeds and food if they need them, that you sell them
  
• Stop NPCs from blaming other NPC communities if a team mate is killed by a zombie
  
• If you stash a chicken in a car or building it becomes yours
  
• Fix for the player not being able to say 'I love you too' if they don't like someone who wants to start a relationship with them
  
• Fix for Superspreader achievement being unlocked when your community has 20 members regardless of if they are animals, or dead, or zombies
  
• Fix for rifle walk/run animations not having footstep sounds
  
• Fix for infection being lost if you pour infected stew from one container to another and in doing so empty the first container
  
• Fix for target body location graphic not being shown if you start targeting someone while paused
  
• Fix for chickens circling each other when trying to stand on the same tile to drink from a bowl
  
• Fix for hit the road maps often not spawning a lot of baddies
  
• Fix for snowball fights restarting due to snowball with high arc hitting opponent after they declared victory or conceded
  
• Crash fixes
  

I won't move v215 to the main branch, due to having found a couple of crashes. Hopefully will do a main branch update soon though.

[h3]What's this publicbeta thing?[/h3]
v216 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".

Yo it's patch day! This month I upgraded to the latest version of Unity, which was a pain as they made a lighting change that caused a lot of problems, but has to be done from time to time. Working on the rendering inspired me to try a new graphics option called Supersampling. This draws the entire scene at double the resolution, then shrinks it down and also does a little blurring on the black outlines. As you can imagine that's pretty intensive so only for higher end graphics cards - it's off by default but you can find in the Graphics Settings menu. The result of it all is that you get less aliasing and the black outlines appear smoother and less flickery. Here's a before and after screenshot for comparison (you'll probably need to open them in another tab and zoom in to see what I mean):



This screenshot also shows something else I added - walking and running animations where they actually hold the rifle in both hands!

The rest of the patch is a variety of different quality of life improvements, bug fixes optimizations and small tweaks. I've added a text search box to the mods list when you start the game, and I've moved My Recent Downloads to an option in the drop-down box instead of being a list you have to scroll past to get to the new and trending mods. So many great mods have been added recently, this should help you find them better!



I've changed the way weapon stats are shown so you can actually see which weapons are better than each other:



I've stopped NPCs from declaring war on you on behalf of their whole community, if their opinion of you drops below a certain level (If you start shooting them up they'll still declare war of course, I'm just talking about when they say "I've had about enough of you!" due to low approval from dialog or whatever). This was something I heard a few complaints about from time to time - people felt only the leader should be able to declare war so easily. Instead they'll start "feuding" with you (i.e. fighting with a melee weapon while others watch), which also means the player can be involved in feuds sometimes instead of just being a passive bystander.

This patch will go in publicbeta. I would have liked to move the previous one, v213, to the main branch but unfortunately it introduced a bug to the clothing screen which while not game-breaking feels a bit gross for new players, so I think I'll hold off.

Here's the full list of changes in v214:

• Improved workshop mods list UI - moved My Recent Downloads into the dropdown menu, added text search and paging
  
• Added a few memories for important events in Story Mode
  
• Stopped Kelly saying 'at least Emma has my back' before she's joined you, instead she'll say 'I wish Emma was here'
  
• Added two more soldiers to Carter Moreno's squad
  
• Added achievement icons
  
• Added difficulty slider for Survivor Repopulation time (i.e. how many days between new survivors spawning in NPC camps that have lost members)
  
• Added button to randomize Community Name on character creation page
  
• Added book model for reading animation
  
• Added stand/walk/run animations holding rifle with both hands
  
• Added Supersampling option in Graphics Settings, reducing aliasing in outlines particularly, for people with high end graphics cards
  
• NPCs, who are not the leader of their community, just start feuding with the player character if they don't like them, instead of declaring war on behalf of their entire community
  
• Changed weapon damage stats and food stats in action menu to be more readable
  
• Changed the Eat action to Steal & Eat when stealing from someone else's campfire pot to make it clearer
  
• Characters with the Moral personality type will not eat human meat unless they are very hungry (it seemed weird before that they would eat it themselves, but get annoyed at others for doing so)
  
• Slightly reduced time before you can attack invisible strain zombies after they turn
  
• Make lumberjack less likely to keep pulling their axe out and swapping it for another weapon while chopping trees
  
• Chefs should replenish fire when fuel drops below 50% instead of waiting till it dies (don't worry it doesn't waste wood, just goes to 150%)
  
• Don't show dialog option for letting people in your gates unless the gates actually enclose something, and they are near your base buildings (not including campfires)
  
• Upgraded to Unity 6000.0.14f and fixed a lot of issues arising from the upgrade
  
• Updated French, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Latin American Spanish, Turkish, Russian and Simplified Chinese translations
  
• Possible fix for NPCs getting stuck making food for friends
  
• Fix for roaming raiders/traders/refugees never having invisible strain (!)
  
• Fix for mercenaries sometimes seeming to keep finding you even if you have no base and are hiding (they should be able to find you once but not keep doing it)
  
• Fix for delay where nothing appears to happen for a while if you enter a building and start ripping up clothes
  
• Fix for AI leaders who happen to be traders dumping their entire inventory after you give them food for the food quest
  
• Fix for people on supply runs sometimes stopping after they collect the final items and staying there instead of returning to base
  
• Fix for NPCs introducing themselves to you twice if you threaten them the first time
  
• Fix for Organizers not depositing special (starred) equipment, brain scanners and knives even if they have the guy with backpack icon
  
• Fix for Rebellion and Turf War quest givers not giving you the full reward if they told you to do it stealthily but you actually killed everyone
  
• Fix for clothes not being visible on the character creation screen clothes page
  
• Fix for neutral characters damaging you if you are in the crossfire when they are shooting a zombie who used to be your teammate
  
• Fix for zombies getting trapped forever on flat bits in the middle of slopes
  
• Fix for minimum delay between friendly snowfights not applying to all dialog paths
  
• Fix for tooltip on trading screen showing original item amount, not amount after pending trades
  
• Fix for overwork memories not fading
  
• Added Infection setting for equipment spawned from templates in scripts (for modders)
  
• Added setting for zombies to be crippled when spawned from templates in scripts (for modders)
  
• Optimizations to memory and personality code
  
• Crash fix
  

EDIT - released a hotfix, v215:

• Fix for Supersample checkbox not working
  
• Fix for case where extorter repeated the same dialog to someone in an AI settlement they were extorting
  

[h3]What's this publicbeta thing?[/h3]
v215 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".

Hey, it's patch time! This is a small patch with another tweak to try and stop people fighting excessively, a few fixes for NPCs getting stuck auto-depositing things, fixes for fetch quests failing, and various other small fixes. And roving traders can now repopulate their guards.

v212 is now the main branch! Going forward I'm expecting to keep the main branch and publicbeta much closer together than they have been for the last year. Please note if you are on the main branch you may suddenly find your characters start fighting each other other in this patch - there was a bug which stopped them from doing that, which was fixed in publicbeta but that kind of opened the floodgates from all the pent up negative memories they had of each other. New memories will be more toned down now but they might still want to fight each other a lot because of the old memories, until a bit of time passes and the bad memories fade. (It will also help when v213 moves to the main branch, which hopefully won't take too long).

I've been doing a Sandbox mode playthrough with the latest settings to see how bad the fighting is now, and while there have been a few fights it didn't feel like it was happening constantly anymore. So I'm going to leave it to settle for a bit and then see if people are still finding it too much.

Here's the full change list for v213:

• Capped approval debuff from Insulted memories
  
• Roving traders can repopulate guards over time if they are killed
  
• A couple more fixes for crafters getting stuck into a loop with auto depositing
  
• Fix for fetch quests failing when the lost item is a stackable type and you transfer it one by one
  
• Fix for characters who are following you while crouching sometimes standing up and attacking when leaving a building after you if enemies are around
  
• Fix for NPCs using melee weapons when a gun would be better in some situations
  
• Fix for chickens sometimes continuing to try to run away from zombies once they are dead
  
• Added Crown hat type for modders who want a hat that keeps the normal hair
  
• If a spawn template uses InheritFromParent it can inherit the location from an Invader that has a subject associated with it
  
• Fix for debug menu not being fully scrollable on small screens
  
• Fixed crash in debug menu
  

[h3]What's this publicbeta thing?[/h3]
v213 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".