Fractured Veil News

[h3]Painting the Town[/h3]
It might seem like we spend all of our development time trying to create a vibrant Lahaina filled with colorful plants, beautiful skies, and pristine waters but that’s because we know how important infusing the game with Hawaiian culture and deadly beauty is. This week we’ve taken it to another level and added a little color and character to the non-natural parts of the island too. Players will notice new graffiti, which adds a bit of realism and Hawaiian flavor. From huge murals on water tanks to simple tags on abandoned homes, players can now find survivor art across the island.



We even added random bumper stickers and decals to cars and trucks.



The automated decal system saves us hours of hand placing decals. It pulls random images and allows us to “age” the graffiti it applies to make it look like it’s survived decades of sun, sand, and wind.



[h3]Fighting the Good Fight[/h3]
We made another pass at the sieging system, improving the mechanics, adjusting construction damage, and buffing the mutants to make them harder to take out while they smash through your walls, but rest assured - we’re not done yet.

We’ll be enhancing AI behavior and improving gameplay based on your feedback until having waves of mutants trying to destroy your hard work is as fun and challenging as it can be



[h3]It’s the Little Things[/h3]
There were a number of various fixes and improvements made this week too. We added a “no construction zone” around the bridge and in front of the cave to keep players from blocking them off with a troll bridge (nice try @Spitfire :).

We improved car materials to make them more realistic, added hula dancer bobbleheads to a few dashboards, and fixed a floating car bug. Speaking of floating things - for any current players who don’t already know, you can disable ‘head bob’ in the settings menu now. It was a great suggestion and an example of us working quickly to make playing as enjoyable as possible!

We also implemented wind on the foliage and added stone spiral stairs to the building system, making it harder for players to fall through the cracks. Players can now corkscrew their way to different floors with all the building material options: thatch, wood, stone, and metal.



[h3]Sand, Surf, and Sun[/h3]
We’ve made huge improvements this sprint to the waves, weather, and water making the environment look as beautiful and real as possible. This week is the culmination of all that work. Not only have our efforts resulted in huge performance gains but the wilds of Lahaina are looking stunning. We made a few post-processing updates and ambient occlusion improvements to make the colors and lighting really stand out.



We Improved shoreline waves with wet sand effects, better rolling waves and foam upping the realism of our shorelines.



[h3]Community Spotlight[/h3]
Many of you have been posting pics of your Badass Base in the #badassbase channel in discord, and we encourage everyone to share their hard work! Here’s a look at some of the new real estate that popped up in Lahaina this week.











Mahalo to our testers who help us every week find what’s not working and what can be improved. Your feedback is hugely important to us so keep it coming! Here’s everything you found and we fixed this week.

• Jman - Metal axe has incredible durability while the metal pick axe is lacking
  
• Play uke sound when shooting ukepoon
  
• Spitfire - Prevent barricades from being built in front of the cave entrance
  

If you want to learn more about Fractured Veil check out our Discord server and visit our Reddit page.
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[h3]Campfire Stories[/h3]
More than just a place to tell scary stories or make smores, campfires are an important part of life in Fractured Veil. They keep you dry and cook food, but they can also draw unwanted attention. Thanks to our community’s feedback, we made a number of campfire improvements this week to make them more performant and realistic looking.

We improved the smoke particle system and smoke plumes are now visible from much farther away. Here’s a look at the old campfires on the left and the new and improved version on the right. You’ll notice how much easier it is to see the smoke now, so you’ll have to be careful when building a fire….or else...



[h3]Surf’s Up[/h3]
It’s always amazing to hear from players who haven’t jumped into a playtest recently that frame rates are higher and Maui is lusher and looking beautifully deadly. We made some impressive performance increases recently with many seeing around a 20fps improvement (we cap at 62fps). In our opinion, the game has never looked better. Last week we spent some time improving the rain and this week the water work continues with waves and the shoreline.

We made some big upgrades to the realism of our waves letting them roll into shore and turn into foam. We’re not done with the waves yet, but we’re really happy with the improvements we made this week!



Now, the waves interact with the shore, and the wet sand changes once the rain hits it, as you can see in this test footage.



We even improved how the underwater sand looks with light and shadows playing across it.



[h3]Look Who’s Coming For Dinner[/h3]
We’ve made good progress on our sieging system and fixed a number of bugs. We buffed the mutants to make them a bit harder to take down, fixed a bug that would allow them to sometimes walk through walls if they approached them at a certain angle, improved their targeting, and made it possible for Trophy Collectors to throw heads from behind barricades. It’s never been harder to survive a mutant onslaught in the game.



[h3]Saying Hello To the New Neighbors[/h3]
The Thorcon Power Plant is the social hub in the game and we recently made some additions inside. Players will now find an area of tent stalls ready for a variety of vendors and trinket peddlers down the road. We even included some porta-pottys to help keep the floors clean. The hanging shark smells bad enough on its own.



A new area for players to explore appeared on the map this week.



Cobbled together from structures that weren’t completely leveled by the Fracture



signs, scrapwood, bits of metal



and even a few repurposed buses



The new tenants aren’t around yet but it’s still an interesting place to explore. The universally friendly “BAR” sign is turned on, so it’s only a matter of time before players can expect a new watering hole in town.

[h3]Community[/h3]
Mahalo to our testers who help us every week find what’s not working and what can be improved. Your feedback is hugely important to us so keep it coming! Here’s everything you found and we fixed this week.

• hop - AI can no longer open locked doors
  

If you want to learn more about Fractured Veil check out our Discord server and visit our Reddit page.
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[h3]Splashin and Slashin[/h3]
Just when we think we’ve gotten our weather system where we want it to be, we decide it needs to be “more Maui”, with vibrant sunrises and soothing sunsets. The weather, rain in particular, is an important part of any survival game. This week we’re excited to show off some of our latest work turning up the realism knob on rain.

First, we set our sights on improving the color of the sky to get that famous blue that Hawaii is known for.



Most of our time this week was focused on the rain. We set up wind direction on the rain allowing it to move horizontally according to wind speed and direction, and we implemented puddles on landscape materials. Good news for splashing enthusiasts, rain will now accumulate and create puddles everywhere. Here’s a look at a recent test of the new system.



We improved rain occlusion and added some material effects to make a rainy day in the game feel as real as possible. Speaking of making things feel more real in the game, we fixed one of our longest standing bugs. Many of you have reported that our rain doesn’t always work well with roofs and walls. We’ve finally made the rain respect boundaries and physics. You can now take shelter from a downpour and it should no longer rain inside the Thorcon Power Plant.



[h3]Lightening Your Load[/h3]
We reduced the weight of all resources to help players carry more at one time, realize their pack mule dreams, and allow them to build a base or rain shelter more quickly. We extended the no build zone around the Thorcon and sent the grounds crew out to take care of an unruly tree that was blocking the zipline. Players can once again take the express lane in the sky from the comm tower and not get stuck in branches.



After listening to your feedback we added a new wooden door option for our more frugal builders and moved the old reinforced wooden door up to the next tier.



[h3]Ready Aim Fire [/h3]
It wasn’t all playing in the rain this week. We made some decent sized changes to Time To Kill (TTK). Mutants and other players hit a lot harder now than before making it more difficult to survive the dangers of Lahaina. The team spent some time on firearms, focusing on the 1911 and the uzi. We adjusted the optimal range of weapons and weapon damage across the board.

We slightly reduced the fire rate of the 1911 and adjusted its damage accordingly after many of you suggested that we make some changes.



We increased the uzi’s recoil and spread and made some adjustments when using it from a prone position.



Since you’ll be chewing through the mutants we made sure to fix a bug with burning the Trophy Collectors after they’ve been killed. Instead of just getting hot feet, the mutants will now burn evenly ensuring a consistent roast.



[h3]Community[/h3]
A big thank you goes to zappingol who was kind enough to stream a play session with us last Friday. Important note: most of the stream is in Spanish - so turn on subtitles! Watch all the fun we had here.

So we started something NEW this week - posting pics of your Badass Base in the #badassbase channel in discord. During our playtest yesterday, we grabbed some shots of different bases and we encourage everyone to share their hard work!





The nice use of reinforcements in front of this base definitely puts it in the running for base of the week!



Mahalo to our testers who help us every week find what’s not working and what can be improved. Your feedback is hugely important to us so keep it coming! Here’s everything you found and we fixed this week.

• JD - Uzi too accurate while prone
  
• [uRxP]DrChocolate - Give stone door a studier look, currently it looks weaker than the wood door
  
• zaccsi - Make placement of crafting bench and similar items to work the same as campfires or building pieces
  
• xstephx - pistol muzzle flash could be less intense
  
• JD - fire rate cap on semi pistol
  
• [uRxP]DrChocolate - Provide a key (e.g. q) to rotate building pieces when in planning mode, e.g. walls and ramps
  
• CrimsonCrusher3 - The visual burning animation for the head hunter is slightly off. The flames are always only at the bottom of his feet
  
• [uRxP]SquintySquanto - Raining inside Thorcon
  
• Hop - hearing rain audio, but not seeing any rain on screen
  

If you want to learn more about Fractured Veil check out our Discord server and visit our Reddit page.
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[h3]For Your Convenience[/h3]
Many of you pointed out that scrolling with your mouse wheel on the action bar needed some improvement and we agreed. It now works smoothly so you can quickly change weapons without having to press a key. We added a progress bar to a number of equipped items including meat and canteens too.



Thanks to the swift bug testing work of some of our favorite streamers, we noticed a problem with weapons not being able to hit specific areas like heads, arms, and legs. So we fixed it and while we were at it - we made it possible to mangle someone’s leg and then heal the specific area of said “mangle”.

Everyone likes things that go boom, so it’s almost impossible not to shoot one of the exploding barrels you find along the roads. It didn’t take long to learn that shooting a barrel would cause an equipped weapon to disappear. That bug should be fixed now so feel free to create as many explosions as you can again.



We heard from some of you that you weren’t a fan of the head bob your characters have when running around. If you’re no fan of that bob (not to be confused with Big Bob) you can now go into your settings and disable it. Check out the difference between both settings:



[h3]Above and below[/h3]
Hawaii is famous for its skies and clear blue waters. We take our job of doing both justice very seriously. We improved overall sky color balance and gradients at all times of day and weather. We also upgraded underwater visuals, light, and water reflections. Early mornings are a perfect time to take a dip and admire the color of the coral and the sun on the water.



[h3]Beasts of Burden[/h3]
It’s been decades since civilization was wiped out in the game, and we’ve been talking about adding some more hi-tech items to let players get a feel for the vibrant technological hub that Lahaina was before The Fracture. This week we added a few robots in and around the Thorcon to help illustrate what West Maui used to be like.

We have a small stable of pack robots in the power plant now still loaded with gear from those who didn’t make it.



You’ll notice industrial crates and shipping containers in the main room as well!



We even have a transport mech parked out in the front lawn now that the homeowners association has been disbanded.



[h3]Easy Meals Not on Wheels[/h3]
We made a number of improvements in AI pathing this week making the movements of our animals and mutants better and allowing them a greater chance of making a meal out of players.

Speaking of meals, we discovered that you couldn’t harvest meat from corpses anymore. While we don’t officially endorse cannibalism we understand that sometimes survival means eating your friends. Players can now once again dine on “long pig” in the game.



[h3]Getting Crafty[/h3]
Crafting is one of the most important parts of any survival game. We know how much fun it is building weapons and gear and upgrading what you have. While they’re purely decorative in the game currently, this week we added a few different crafting bench options for players to choose from. Functionality will be coming soon.

Players can choose the standard distressed wood look



A sturdier-looking model with totem inspired legs



Or this journeyman option perfect for cataclysmic finish work.



We fixed some persistence issues for attachments and banked items as well as adding wood as an option for spiral stairs. Fans of going around and around as they climb can now choose from thatch, metal, and wood when building a structure.



[h3]Community Fixes[/h3]
Mahalo to our testers who help us every week find what’s not working and what can be improved. Your feedback Is hugely important to us so keep it coming! Here’s everything you found and we fixed this week.

• Wags - Option to disable head bob
  
• [uRxP]Lavim - Base is decaying even with Totem full of resources
  
• Party size limited to 10
  
• Jman - audio bugs with harvesting tools
  
• Pistoling - explosive barrels make equipped weapons disappear
  
• Lavim - picking up crafting table launches you into the air
  
• Pistoling - Collision on stairs needs to be adjusted, can crouch into them and shoot people through them
  
• Azshire the Great - No longer taking fall damage
  

If you want to learn more about Fractured Veil check out our Discord server and to see a complete list of updates and fixes visit our Reddit page.
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[h3]Keep Your Distance[/h3]
While we’ve spent a lot of time thinking of ways to encourage people to play together, this week we’ve come up with a few ways to keep them apart. We’ve added three different types of barricades to the crafting menu to help players protect themselves and their constructions.

Our first offering is your standard wooden spike barricade. The pointy parts do damage and should be rotated to face potential threats.



Next we have metal barricades which in addition to doing damage have a slowing effect on anything trying to pass through.



Last but certainly not least, we have good old concrete barricades. Made famous in thousands of movie car chases, concrete barricades are an excellent place to take cover from gunfire and arrows.



[h3]Stepping Up[/h3]
Good news #Builders! We added thatch to our spiral stair family this week. They offer a beautiful and economical option to the metal stairs in the game currently.



In addition to the new material, we fixed an infinite loop bug that could be triggered when removing and re-adding spiral stairs. Just remember to make sure that nobody breaks the bottom stairs or you could be in for quite a fall.



We also fixed a bug with the scroll wheel not working when the construction tool was equipped and made sure middle click now works when placing items like campfires and chests. We had some fun solving a problem with rotation of foundation stairs and since we noticed players having a tricky time using them, we increased the size of door locks. Now they show up on both sides of door frames as well.

Some of you were having problems loading and assigning group permissions for totems, but you shouldn’t anymore. We added messages for filling your totem up with resources to prevent decay when you place one the first time and when you upgrade part of your house the first time. We even added UI icons for wood, stone and metal doors this week to make it easier when you’re in upgrade mode.



[h3]Not Just Another Pretty Face[/h3]
We’ve increased the number of teammates you can have in a group. Now you and 19 of your closest survival buddies can run for your lives through the jungle.

The various posters in buildings should now be pulled from a group of random images (even if the total number of images isn’t that big right now). We’d love to get some more in the mix including any of your pets. Head over to our #pets channel and upload an image so we can brighten the apocalypse with a picture of your furry or scaly friend.



[h3]Sightseeing[/h3]
We added a few more vehicles across the map including this tanker truck in the industrial pit as a reminder to never trust your GPS after the fracture.



We added some storage tanks outside the thorcon to help make the neighborhood more interesting and offer players places to hide as well.



[h3]How Dry I am[/h3]
We’ve heard from many of you that water was too hard to come by while you’re exploring the jungle so we added another water source to the game. You can now craft or find these rain catchers across the map providing tarp flavored water to those in need.



We also made some transition improvements to where our big river hits the sea to make it look more natural.

[h3]Leaving the Lights On[/h3]
Finally, we did some torch tweaking, changing where they attach to window frames and adjusting their light radius. They offer the perfect amount of light to creep around the house now.



We updated our placeable Lantern too, giving them brighter and more realistic flames. You can see below how well the light up a room compared to torches.



[h3]Community Fixes[/h3]
Mahalo to our testers who help us every week find what’s not working and what can be improved. Your feedback is hugely important to us so keep it coming! Here’s everything you found and we fixed this week.

• schism - Mutants in thorcon
  
• [uRxP] Visseck - Stuck on zipline
  
• ProfessorSnubs - sulfur is transformed to sawtooth axes on crash and other strange transformations
  
• Players spawning in with bleeding tag
  
• Azshire the Great - Sink holes in 3x4 by rivier
  
• Gubbleduzz - various crashes
  
• Azshire the Great - Floating plants in greenhouse
  
• Pistoling - Upgrading any thatch foundation does not detect whether the player is inside the structure.
  
• Players unable to revive other players
  
• [uRxP]Lavim Base is decaying even with Totem full of resources
  
• When in menus only let the player use "WASD"
  
• [uRxP]Maashadar - melee weapons will not damage mutants
  
• KingPin - animals are not damageable unless they are running away from you
  
• Azshire the Great - Can’t use scroll wheel when tool is out
  
• gundy - No light coming off of construction torches
  
• Aazlor - items drug into inventory from floor disappear
  
• [uRxP]Lavim - After server crash/restart base reset back to thatch
  
• Azshire the Great - once I hit the ceiling and couldn't build, screen went super bright, even when at the bottom on ground.
  
• Zaccsi - Make Smelters Craftable
  
• Elliot - Buildable traps around players houses such as spike traps, barbed wire, etc
  
• Varien and Larry - Escape not working, make it close any open menu
  

If you want to learn more about Fractured Veil check out our Discord server and to see a complete list of updates and fixes visit our Reddit page.
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