Fractured Veil News

Stair Stacking, Spawn Points, and Tweaking the Sun

[h3]Getting Your Steps In[/h3]
Another week - another dev update!

For all of the #builders in our community, we’re happy to report that we’re continuing to make improvements to our construction system. A number of you suggested we add stairs that you could use with half walls in your structures. Well, it may take you twice as long to get your steps in, but we adjusted the spiral staircases to match up with half walls!

Don’t worry, the spiral stairs are now stackable for diehards looking for a full stair experience. While we were at it, we added the ability to place spiral staircases on triangle and rounded foundations and fixed some structural integrity bugs.

We fixed an issue with upkeep information not showing in the totem UI.

We fixed a crash we found in our recent playtests, and one when pinging, you are free to ping again. We also worked out an issue with fall damage so players won’t die when falling from heights of a couple of inches anymore. Giant leaps can still be fatal, however.

[h3]Home Improvements[/h3]
We added craftable smelters so players can start purifying their ore in the comfort of their own home, and we made torches upgradable to lanterns for those of you looking for a non-medieval light source in your base.

[h3]Where Did All the Neighbors Go? [/h3]
Players arrive in Maui after the fracture and our goal is for you to ask, “Hey, where did everyone go?” or “What happened here?” while wandering around the island.

We’re building a shantytown across the river from the power plant for future exploration and eventually, clues about those who came before.

And a few hoop houses have been constructed in the area so that survivors can grow and secure the rare Kükenroot for future generations.

[h3]So Long Floaty Butcher[/h3]
As much as it hurt our hearts we nabbed one of our favorite bugs ever this week. We fixed an issue with the AI spawner that would cause AI to show up where something new had been added with often hilarious results.

Sadly, mutants will no longer be found inside walls, trees, and rivers, underneath buildings or rocks, or straddling a deer suspended above the water.

[h3]Like Tears in the...Ocean[/h3]
We lowered the ocean floor depth and fixed swimming to allow players to do a little diving in our beautiful blue waters. We even added coral and various types of seaweed to accompany the tropical fish you can find swimming around the numerous structures that extend into the ocean.

[h3]Here Comes The Sun[/h3]
Post-processing work continued this week with a focus on sunrise and sunsets. Our goal is to make the game as immersive as possible through our lighting and environments. Here we are showing off our sunset tool while sowing chaos in the native bat population.

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

zaccsi - deer running into the water
schism - Want to build stairs on stairs, stairs on round pieces, stairs on triangles
Azshire the Great - Door sometimes disappearing when entering code
Zaccsi - Mutants spawning under a house

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.
[h3]More About Fractured Veil[/h3]

Building Attachments and New Axes

[h3]Construction updates [/h3]
We’re excited to share some new attachment upgrades this week. After doing some playtesting, we heard feedback that some aspects of the construction system could be improved, so we got to work. Right now you can only upgrade doors but soon players will be able to upgrade any attachment in their house from torches to LED lamps, rickety chairs to thrones, on and on.

We added some other building options to make your apocalypse shack a home this week including half round walls and thatch doors.

And for those with more elegant tastes, metal spiral staircases.

[h3]Tech Improvements[/h3]
This is the first week on the brand new server, this hardware is amazing, we are on literally the fastest per thread server CPU in the world, the Intel 10700K, this has at least doubled our player capacity.

We will be upgrading to a 10900K as soon as server motherboards are available. We’ve made improvements to the login system that should now allow dozens of people to login simultaneous instead of hanging the client.

There have been huge AI improvements, we have tested with over 500 AI attacking a player and the server handles it like a champ.

AI can now step up higher so you can’t keep the hordes at bay by making a slightly elevated front step and we worked out some player persistence problems that were causing performance issues.

[h3]Since You Axed[/h3]
We added a couple of new axes this week. The first is a new metal axe that looks more like something you’d find at the end of the world than its previous iteration. It is perfect for chopping down trees (which no longer momentarily disappear when chopped down.)

The second is a more hefty 2 handed saw-blade tool of destruction.

Progress is being made on building out the area around the Thorcon power plant to make the safe zone a bigger and better place.

And we’re continuing our work on post processing for day and night. Here’s a look at daybreak on the beach before

And after

[h3]It’s the Small Things[/h3]
When you’re playing any game, the animations can have a big impact on taking you out of the immersive environment. If something feels off, it can be distracting. So that’s why we improved all of the first person harvesting animations. Our place holder machete animations are gone now as well!

We’ve also made some tweaks to campfire and torch animations. No longer will there be a 1 second delay when you need that fire!

Lastly, we fixed the animations on our Trophy Collectors. You can clearly see the heads they throw flying through the air again before exploding in a cloud of poisonous gas.

[h3]Community Fixes[/h3]
Mahalo to our testers who help us every week discover what's not working and point out what needs fixing. Your feedback and ideas are hugely important to us! Here’s everything you found and we fixed this week.

Schism3110 - Construction floor keeps rotating the wrong way
Azshire the Great - Totems are no longer preventing decay
ryan - Can’t damage foundations
rombing - Materials Missing on tree stumps
Grant - fire icon never leaves
zaccsi - persistence performance issues
nubkid - getting hung on loading
Elliot - Can’t interact with anything, see log
Aazlor - Construction torch issues

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.
[h3]More About Fractured Veil[/h3]

Roadside Attractions

[h3]The Places Between Places[/h3]
There’s no doubt that discovering a new building or big landmark in a game can be exciting. As players of survival games ourselves, we know how fun it is to explore a large structure, looking for hidden loot or whatever else may be living inside. It’s one of the reasons we’ve spent a ton of dev time making our Comm Tower, Thorcon Power Plant, and Veilstation great places to explore. We also thought getting there should be just as much fun.

[h3]Are We There Yet? [/h3]
We’re always going to be adding more stuff (closed-alpha means we can keep testing / adding / breaking), so for the roads more and less traveled, as well as the little stops in between, we wanted to give exploration fans reasons to get excited.

This week we focused on improving some of those in-between areas and our diorama system. The system automatically places interesting things to see and loot to scrounge along the trails, paths, rivers, and roads, basically everywhere players commonly travel going from place to place.

Whether it’s an old pool table salvaged from the ruins and the losers from the last West Maui 9-ball tournament,

a kitchen table and knife set repurposed as an emergency medical station,

or a make-shift shrine, there are plenty of reminders on the island of the thriving Maui that existed before the fracture. All signs point to the ingenuity of the handful of survivors who made it through the cataclysm.

[h3]Travel Insurance[/h3]
All that stuff is great, but players can make great tactical use of many of the items they find along the roads, rivers, and beaches as well. Taking shelter behind a barricade is a great way to decrease your profile and avoid getting shot.

Even a car door can provide a little cover in a pinch

and if you need a place to hide there are very few options as good as jumping in the back of a truck (as long as you don’t mind a few bodies.)

[h3]Hitting the Road[/h3]
It’s not all scrounging for canned goods and hiding on the road. The bodies strung up on street lights are good for target practice and look especially spooky at night.

The gas tanks and discarded fuel containers you find scattered around the map can help make every encounter a one-shot kill.

[h3]Getting There Is Half The Fun[/h3]
There’s a lot of traveling and exploration in survival games and we want to make sure that our paths not only tell a story, but offer players something useful and interesting along the way.

If you want to spend your time ambushing players from the back of a truck, blowing up mutants with explosive barrels, or just taking in a sunset while looking for supplies, our diorama system has something for everyone.

[h3]Beta Keys[/h3]
The end of our systems update is in sight and we know how eager many of you are to get in the game. We appreciate your patience! We’ll be handing out new testing keys again soon. As always, a big mahalo to our current testers who help us find bugs and provide great ideas for the game. We love your feedback!

Here’s a list of everything you found and we fixed since the last play session.

Aazlor - Outline on the building part that is going to be upgraded so you can see what you are upgrading
Eldisty - Can’t see other players muzzle flashes/bullets and there are no sounds
nubkid - AI hitching once more than 60 were spawned
Maikowl - AI on constructed pieces
Schism3110 - Mutants should not be able to open doors with padlocks or totems
zaccsi - AI Sliding
Azshire the Great - Spawned in God Mode
Larry - Server crash when building

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.
[h3]More About Fractured Veil[/h3]

Construction System and Material Updates

[h3]Building a Base[/h3]
There’s no doubt that building something is one of the best parts of a survival game. Whether it’s a bridge, a look-out tower, or a communal base for stashing loot and security, a good construction system can really draw you into a game. We’ve done a big overhaul to our construction system recently, and this week we completed metal, the last (for now) of our building material options.

[h3]Teamwork Makes The Dream Work[/h3]
Building a little hut in the woods can be fun, but if you pool your resources with others you can build something big very quickly.

We’ve spent a lot of time refactoring the construction system, making huge improvements in performance, and this week we added metal as our 4th building material option. It may be the most durable but the other materials available have plenty to offer players too.

[h3]Thatch[/h3]

While it may not have worked out too well for the first little pig, building a base out of dried grass is a great option in Fractured Veil. Thatch may be the weakest material but it is also the cheapest in terms of resources required to build. In a relatively short time, you and a few friends can build a sprawling beach base with a great view of the water and shoreline.

[h3]Wood[/h3]

A little stronger than thatch and absolutely beautiful, wood is a favorite around here because of how good it looks with the jungle as a background. We’ve included decals and markings inspired by traditional Hawaiian designs. It even looks great illuminated by the light of a drone.

[h3]Stone[/h3]

It takes a lot of rock pounding to construct, but a stone structure can take a beating. It’s not just the durability that makes stone a good building material, it is as pretty to look at as it is strong. With totem inspired poles and Hawaiian designs etched in the rocks themselves, stone is a great material for a house or an outpost guarding a stream.

[h3]Metal[/h3]
Last but certainly not least is our newest option. Metal is the most durable material currently and the most time consuming to collect.

A collection of siding, diamond plate, old pipes, scraps and empty cans (even SSHAM, Lahaina's favorite processed meat product) metal building materials look the most like something you’d be able to buy at a post-apocalyptic home improvement store.

We’ve made sure to add a number of decorations and accent pieces to the collection of metal bits to provide a cohesive feel with the other building material.

With the completion of our metal construction materials, causal players and those who hate to logout alike have great looking options to stake a claim to a bit of Lahaina and build a home base.

[h3]Beta Keys[/h3]
The end of our system updates is right around the corner. In truth, we’ll be testing and building for many months to come but the window allowing us to let new testers in the game is almost open. As always, a big mahalo to our testers who help us find bugs and provide great ideas for the game. We love your feedback!

Here's a list of everything you found and we fixed since the play session last week.

Schism3110, scud, and zaccsi - Can’t place foundations, intersection issues
After server crashes multiple issues with players until killed
Server crashes after attacking building
Aazlor - issues with upgrading the L stairs from thatch to metal, shape/direction changes

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.
[h3]More About Fractured Veil[/h3]

Beach Updates and Improvements

[h3]Building A Better Beach[/h3]
Maui is famous for jaw-dropping beaches and turquoise waters and making the shoreline its own special place is something we've worked on since the very beginning of our development. This week we completed work on a tool that will help us bring our beaches to life and give players great new places to build and explore.

[h3]Beach Diorama Tool[/h3]
The new beach diorama tool allows us to quickly and efficiently generate a number of different objects and scenes along the shoreline.

Placing these reminders of the world that existed before the Fracture used to take us hours of setting up by hand before the tool was completed.

The new system even allows us to add loot and props to structures nearby.

[h3]Exploration[/h3]
We know how much fun it can be to explore new areas and find those special spots, hidden away until you search for them. There are many unique places and lots to see along our shores now.

Bits of the world frozen in time since the collapse of civilization dot the beach.

There are structures to check out for shelter, water, or maybe a surfboard or two.

The numerous wrecks along the beach are perfect for exploring any time of the day, even the middle of the night.

[h3]Beach Houses[/h3]
It may be a bit further away from resources when compared to building a house in the jungle, but building on the beach has some great benefits. Not only is the ocean a beautiful looking backdrop but it can act as a natural barrier to help you avoid danger. It doesn’t matter if you’re building a stone fortress on a sandbar

or a simple grass shack, there’s plenty of open spaces for players to build on along the beach.

[h3]Natural Highway[/h3]
With the new beach diorama tool in place, players can fully enjoy one of Maui’s most iconic features. Traveling along the sand can be a good way to investigate some of the more dangerous parts of the island, with a clear path of retreat if you need it. We want the beach to be a place for you to meet up with other players, scrounge for resources, and an interesting place for you to explore with an occasional reminder of what life used to be like on the island.

[h3]Beta Keys[/h3]
The end of our refactor is almost here. It’s true that we will be in a state of testing and building for months to come but we are narrowing in on a window when we can open the game up to new testers again. Mahalo to our current testers who help us find what needs fixing every week and providing great ideas for the game. We love your feedback so keep it coming!

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.
[h3]More About Fractured Veil[/h3]