OUTBRK News

Hello chasers! We've been working all month on the biggest OUTBRK update to date, so we're giving up an extended update on our progress and what is coming up after that.


[h2]PARTY SYSTEM[/h2]
The party system is in great shape and almost ready to be released. It has been tested by our Quality Assurance team and we only have one remaining outstanding issue with some microphones configurations remaining to be fixed before being able to release the massive update we’ve been preparing.



[h2]KEY REBINDING SYSTEM[/h2]
We reworked our entire keybinding system to fix the various issues players had when attempting to customize their gameplay experience. We also added various bindable actions that were exclusive to the action wheel menu, like wipers, lights, antennas, anchor, etc.


[h2]BUG FIXES AND MORE[/h2]
We have identified the source of a memory leak causing crashes after a certain amount of playing time and we are currently testing a solution to eliminate it.

Various bugs have also been fixed like some world design bugs, random deaths, cars not starting or not controllable due to server issues, probes giving points when they shouldn’t, and more.

We’ve also added a black and a white version of a new SevereStudios.com t-shirt for characters to wear in game.

We’re also testing the radio system to see if we can include it to the 0.1 update.


We’re working on adding more content to the game, here are some artist renders (not in-game yet) of what is to come in the near future.
[h2]CARS AND CAR ACCESSORIES[/h2]


And a little teaser of the interior of an upcoming car.



[h2]CHARACTER ACCESSORIES[/h2]



[h2]PERFORMANCES[/h2]
The team is still working hard on optimizing the cloud rendering system. We wanted the tech art team to put all their time and energy on doing research and development to improve the overall performances of the clouds and they are currently testing different theories to find a suitable solution. As soon as this is done, they will switch their focus on improving visuals and adding more tornado types.

[h2]WEATHER MODEL[/h2]
We’ve made good progress on our weather model resolution upgrade which required us to set up a super-computer infrastructure. As previously mentioned, this will allow us to have a lot more details in storm structures, especially in the lower-levels. We are now very close to running our first model run with this improvement.

[h2]GAMEPLAY SYSTEMS[/h2]
We are currently working on revamping some gameplay systems to give a better purpose to reports and pictures. We’re also making some changes to the probes system to make them more intuitive and fun.




That's all for this development update ! Thanks for all your support, consider leaving a review on the steam store to reach more potential future chasers ! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1107320/OUTBRK/
Till next time,
-The OUTBRK Team

Hello chasers! This month was a very busy one ! We did a lot of major improvement to the game and set the table for even more cool stuff coming up.

1. Added 16 new storm scenarios.
   
2. We fixed the lag spike when driving, deploying probes, and entering or exiting a vehicle.
   
3. We greatly improved the matchmaking stability, fixing multiple issues such as needing to restart the game between matches.
   
4. Greatly improved performances overall. Users are reporting an average of 15-20 FPS gain with the same quality settings.
   
5. Improved tornado physics interaction with players.
   
6. Fixed random deaths occurrences.
   

The work we’ve been doing on the matchmaking system is the first major step on the party system, and we’re already making great progress on building the actual feature to be able to create a lobby with your friends and join a public game together without having to do a countdown and click “chase” at the same time. Players will be able to invite Steam friends to their group, or invite other chasers via an invite code to join their lobby and chase together.

It's almost ready and we're currently doing multiple daily testing sessions to rule out any possible issues before we put the party system live for everyone.

We’re at the stage of evaluating the possibility to allow large enough parties to do “Private Lobbies”, but nothing to confirm yet.


[h2]New content creators decals already integrated[/h2]

https://www.twitch.tv/caseoh_


https://www.twitch.tv/chibidoki


https://www.twitch.tv/thorlar


[h2]Work In Progress[/h2]

[h3]Rally Lights and Mesh Hail Protectors[/h3]

[h3]Customizable Tire Rims[/h3]



We’re continuing the work on the Party system, testing, working on the UI, until we’re ready to deploy this major feature.

Our VFX team is continuing performance improvement on the clouds, mainly focusing on reducing the blue artifacts caused by increasing clouds downsampling.

We onboarded two 3rd party developers to resume the work on Character Customization.

We’re reworking our key rebinding system to be more permissive and more intuitive.

We are also currently improving our weather model to use more computer power and allow us to do simulations with a better resolution, which will allow a lot more details and better structure especially in the lower parts of the storms.



That's all for this development update ! Thanks for all your support, consider leaving a review on the steam store to reach more potential future chasers ! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1107320/OUTBRK/
Till next time,
-The OUTBRK Team

Fixed an issue causing players to die for no reason after entering tornado danger zone
Fixed an issue causing the UI to break when you run out of photos on the camera
Fixed an issue causing a caravan to grow in size blocking the road

Improved matchmaking stability and preliminary work for the party system.
Eliminated several lag spikes and freezes while driving, deploying probe and entering/exiting car.



Added anemometer on the Dominator 3 to measure wind speeds while in the vehicle.
Added a probe data upload phase after picking up a probe that gathered data.
Added 10 new scenarios to the game rotation.
Added several content creator decals (CaseOh, Thorlar, Chibidoki).
Updated the lightning system to offer better performance and smoother animations.
Updated the poles and wires system to be more stable and performant.
Optimized corn fields performance.



Fixed an issue causing players to die from a tornado without being picked up or tossed.
Fixed an issue causing the DOM3 windows to break.
Fixed an issue causing some players to crash on start up.
Fixed an issue with UI getting stuck when interacting with the camera.
Fixed an issue causing players not having mouse control in the score screen.
Fixed an issue preventing probes to be deployed after towing.
Fixed an issue with players spawning on top of each others after towing.
Fixed towing sometimes not taking players to the closest location.



Fixed an issue with icons scaling.
Fixed radar location text visual issues on laptop.
Fixed an issue causing traffic lights to not function properly.
Fixed an issue causing inputs in the F9 menu to occur in the game while typing a report.
Fixed one scenario starting too early.
Fixed a scenario having clouds too close to the ground.
Fixed game version on main menu displaying on separate lines.
Fixed a visual issue in garage when displaying car info.
Fixed an issue causing WNW wind speed reading to display on two separate lines.
Fixed a few select props floating in air after destruction occurs.
Fixed lightning strikes appearing on map edges in some scenarios with no storm.
Fixed rare crashes

Added 6 new scenarios to the rotation
Updated tornado physics logic to fix and improve interaction on players and vehicles
Increased overall performance by optimizing all objects in the OUTBRK world
Added a check to attempt to prevent vehicles from falling under the map



Fixed several world bugs including floating or obstructed roads causing players to get stuck
Fixed instances of destruction being out of sync with the tornadoes