Icarus News

This week we’re introducing the second-place finisher of our Discord Poll from two weeks ago - the CHAC ‘Sentinel' Pistol.

This new 4-round magazine pistol is quick to both fire and reload, making it great for a tight situation where you need a get-out-of-jail-free card.

We’re also introducing a new ammo type - the Jacketed Pistol Ammo. This can be bought from the Orbital Workshop in boxes of 25.

Jump in and have a read.


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This week brings the new Workshop Pistol - the loser of our Discord poll two weeks ago but still, an exciting new item for players to purchase and use in their missions.

The CHAC ‘Sentinel’ Pistol has a 4-shot magazine that reloads as a magazine (rather than per individual round) and uses standard pistol ammo.

Compared to the standard pistol, it has +25% damage and +25% critical damage. It also can fire 115 shots per minute, which is nearly double the speed of the hunting rifle.

To pair with the quick trigger, it sports a 2.65s reload time, which when you consider means reloading four rounds as a magazine rather than a single bullet, is a substantial difference in efficiency.

The CHAC Pistol costs 1000 Ren/500 Exotics to research, and 500 Ren/250 Exotics to craft in the Orbital Workshop.

The CHAC Pistol is overall, a steady and reliable weapon. While it provides lower damage per shot than a rifle or high-tier bow, it compensates with a fast fire rate and even faster reload speed for situations that require quick reactions.


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Alongside the new CHAC Pistol, we’re also introducing a new Orbital Workshop Pistol Ammo.

The new Jacketed Pistol Ammo deals a meaty 200 damage per shot, over 50 more projectile damage than the pistol ammo you can craft on planet.

This can be bought in boxes of 25 in the workshop and brought to the surface to be used to be unpacked and used. It’ll cost 250 Ren to research, and a subsequent 100 Ren per box to craft.


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Next week, we’ll be converting over the first three Styx Operations we’ve completed in our ongoing conversion project.

These will be Rendezvous: Delivery, Abyss: Research, and Remnant: Extraction.

IMPORTANT: If you are currently in progress on any of these missions, the progress on these may be impacted. This is due to the quest logic changing to support the conversion. We recommend you complete these before next Thursday PST.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1995690/Icarus_Styx_Expansion/

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We are working on optimizing our level streaming internally at the moment, but we are not ready to release it just yet. If you are interested in one of the last optimization efforts which fixed one of the big the late game hitches, you can find the information in the link below.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1149460/view/4170974735559885080

[hr][/hr][h2]Your support makes these updates possible.[/h2]

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/40692/Icarus_Pets_Bundle/

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/35727/Icarus_Complete_the_Set/
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New Content
[expand]

• Unlocked CHAC Pistol for release
  
• Unlocked Jacketed Pistol Ammo for release
  

[/expand]

Fixed
[expand]

• Increased turret max pitch to 50
  

[/expand]

This week we’re introducing the winner of our Discord Poll - the Automated Defense System: Pistol.

The new Turret packs a wallop, with a 400-round chamber, 120 degrees of horizontal rotation and a 50m max range.


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The new ‘Automated Defense System: Pistol’ is a powerful new Turret system for you to deploy in defence of your base.

It sports a 50m max range, five rotation degrees per second, a two-second cool down between shots, 45 degrees of vertical rotation (pitch), and 120 degrees of horizontal rotation. It consumes 3000 power while in action and 1500 while sitting idle, so make sure to keep it supported by a robust power network.

For this powerful defense system, there is a large cost to match. You’ll need eight Titanium Plate, 12 Electronics, 12 Composites, 12 Aluminum Plate, one Pistol, 20 Steel Screws and 12 Copper Wire.

The Automated Defense System: Pistol is your ‘all-rounder’ defense system that fires a steady stream of pistol rounds, helped by its massive 400-round capacity.

The lights on the bottom of the Turret indicate its ammo and targeting status. Red reflects a Turret that is out of ammo, blue if it is stocked with ammo and yellow/orange if honing in and firing on a target.

Additionally, there are lights on the side of the turret to give you a visual cue of the Turret's ammo supply. High ammo counts shine a vibrant light green, reducing in brightness as the Turret burns through its clip before transitioning to orange and then red as it gets critically low. Once it hits full red, that means you're entirely out of ammo and need to resupply.


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Continuing our work on late game hitching, we’re introducing some new fixes, changes and settings that allow more control for players.

But before we get into it, here’s a quick reminder of how the mineable rock voxels in Icarus work:

A stone that has not been mined is a single mesh, while a partially mined stone can be composed of multiple meshes. The larger the stone, the more meshes required. Large stone voxels tend to be placed in world with roughly 30% of the stones entire volume underground so they blend in naturally with the landscape. This does mean however that multiple meshes are left behind when all the visible stone has been mined, leaving a substantial amount of these meshes across Open World prospects which have been active for some time.

Information about these mined meshes has to be communicated from the server to the client, and then streamed in for each player as they move around the world and new landscape tiles are loaded in. Each of these is another multiplier to the strain on CPU/GPU created by the ever expanding number of un-mined meshes.

With that in mind, the changes this week are focused on limiting this impact by giving players more control over how stone voxels are loaded in their prospects.

A new option has been added to the settings menu that will reload all stone voxels to an ‘un-mined’ single mesh state on persistent prospects during load. This has the restriction of only automating this reloaded state if there are no buildings or deployables in the immediate area. This setting will also be enabled by default.

The settings can be found as follows:

For hosts and local players:
Settings > Gameplay Options > Large Stones Respawn

For dedicated servers:
ServerSettings.ini > LargeStonesRespawn=True


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Next week, we’ll be introducing the runner-up in our Discord Poll - the CHAC Pistol. Thank you to everyone for voting in our first-ever poll of this kind.
[hr][/hr][h2]Your support makes these updates possible.[/h2]

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/40692/Icarus_Pets_Bundle/

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/35727/Icarus_Complete_the_Set/
[hr][/hr] New Content
[expand]

• Unlock Turret for release
  
• Initial branch of files from Trunk to 2.2.6-Release #unlimitedpower
  
• Updating Branchmap.json with new release stream info
  
• Hooked up brown laika trophies
  
• Added second darker variant of the Laika trophies
  
• Adding Dark Brown Laika Dog, Workshop Item, Items, AI Setup etc
  

[/expand]

Fixed
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• Fix an intermittent issue with unminable voxels on clients where the voxel has been marked no longer net relevant on client resume
  
• Improved skinning on the ghillie suit chest piece to remove stretching while aiming
  
• Removed flyaway grass strands from the ghillie head piece
  
• Update recipes to support butchery benches
  
• Fix a tri-state ambigutiy with voxels being unmined/partially mined/fully mined (Zeb)
  
• Increased the basic pistol round damage from 100 -> 150
  

[/expand]

Future Content
[expand]

• Submitting change to UnrealGameSync.ini
  
• Fixed and increased CHAC Pistol crafting cost
  
• Added text for CHAC pistol
  
• Add spider loot, bestiary traits, experience and additional combat stats
  

[/expand]

In our previous Free Laika update we added pet companions to the game, as well as new DLC with extra content for those wanted to support development. Some of this content wasn't ready in time, but we kept working on it and now it is ready for this update.

For more information, checkout the Laika Update below
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1149460/view/4191238396441414580

This week debuts two new four-legged friends - the Pug for the owners of the Animal Companions DLC and Laika herself for everyone to get from the Orbital Workshop. We’ve also got some progress updates on our project to add more Operations on Styx and Olympus Open World by converting over more Missions, and a player-voted poll so you can decide what next week’s new item will be.

• Pistol Damage has received a buff from 100 → 150 Damage, bringing it more in line with other firearms.
  
• SprintSpeed multiplier stats now affect mount movement speed correctly (Buff for a Tusker nerf for a Horse)
  
• Adjustments to chicken collision and walk angle (Improves ramp climbing ability)
  

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[h3]Each of these two dogs have the dog archetype talent trees and their own vestiges and trophies to collect[/h3]



[h2]Laika the Dog[/h2]
Laika is based on the likeness of the real Laika, who was one of the first animals in space and the first to orbit the Earth.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
‘Laika the Dog' is now purchasable with Ren from the Orbital Workshop for all players, regardless if you have bought the Animal Companions DLC or not. She can then be brought down to the surface to join you as a four-legged companion on your adventures or to keep you company around your base. She comes in both Tan and Brown variants.

[h3]Laika the Dog does not require any DLC, and is freely available for all players to unlock in the workshop[/h3]

[h3]Laika also comes with a special harness[/h3]
There is also a craftable harness, made at the Ranching Station costing 25 Leather and 15 Rope, usable exclusively on Laika variants.

[h2]Pug (Pets DLC)[/h2]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2923820/Icarus_Pet_Companions_Pack/

For those who have also bought the Pet Companions DLC, you’ll also now be able to purchase a Pug from the Orbital Workshop to join you on the surface. The smallest of our breeds so far, the Pug is for those who prefer a more peaceful life, and aren’t too worried about losing it underfoot or in medium height grass.

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We are currently working through the missions on Styx as part of part two of the project to transition the majority of missions over to Operations.

This is a time-consuming project, as the missions we’re converting now require a lot more adjustment and testing than previous missions which were more straightforward.

The aim of this is to provide more operations for people to enjoy in their Open World, and making it easier to play the way you wish to play, than being restricted to certain game modes.

As a reminder, some missions will not be converted over to Open World, specifically the exploration missions. These were created to provide an Open World experience before Open World existed, and also to provide an environment where players could farm exotics without a heavy time restriction. Currently, when you do prior missions, these are unlocked automatically in the mission tree and these might even be removed entirely in the future as they have little place in the current state of the game.


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Next week we’ll be trialing our first-ever player-voted update.

You’ll be able to vote in a Discord poll this week that will decide whether the update will introduce either:

• The CHAC Pistol which is available to purchase from the orbital workshop, comes with a 4 bullet clip, +25% Ammo Damage and +25% Critical Damage, high rate of fire and a quick reload. This comes along with new workshop pistol ammo which hits harder than the ammo crafted on planet.
  
• The Pistol Turret, available in Tier 4 of the tech tree and fires pistol ammo to keep your base safe. This requires a power source and regular restocking of ammo to stay active
  

[h3]If you want to have your say, join our Discord and vote in our poll which will go up this week.[/h3]

[hr][/hr][h2]Your support makes these updates possible[/h2]

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/40692/Icarus_Pets_Bundle/

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/35727/Icarus_Complete_the_Set/

[hr][/hr]

New Content
[expand]

• Added textures and materials for Laika colour variant and it's carcass, including gfur materials
  
• Ensure Voxel OnRep events are delegated until after BeginPlay for all voxels. Fix an issue with non minable voxels when the last player on dedicated server rejoins without returning to lobby (server paused)
  
• Turn off some very verbose logging left in place in voxel recorders
  
• Add LargeStonesRespawn option (again)
  
• Unlocked Laika and Pug workshop unlocks, and related recipes, for release
  

[/expand]

Fixed
[expand]

• Converting the atmosphere controller to be truely data driven, all the atmosphere data is now defined via datatable rather than hard values within one blueprint, makes it a lot easier to add new atmopsheres to the game
  
• Juvenile taming talents now directly add or subtract from min/max taming temperature instead of applying a % modifier, this should provide a more consistent bonus over all temperature ranges.
  
• Fixed bug where relevant player stats below 0 weren't being applied to owned juveniles
  
• Added additional ranks to taming temperature tolerance talents
  
• NOMAD: Remove quest creature modifier from Daisy on quest step completion
  
• Add translatable string for device inspection UI
  
• Reduced size of chicken's cloth affector capsule to hopefully improve ramp climbing ability
  
• Fixed bug where if an NPC died to bleed damage, it wouldn't grant kill XP. Fixed bug where white 'hit' screen effects would be played every time an NPC took status effect damage caused by player
  
• Added ability for mounts/tames to have an internal body temperature and receive modifiers if that temperature exceeds comfortable range (similar to players)
  
• Exposed Hot/Cold resistance values in D_Mounts table
  
• SprintSpeed multiplier stats now affect mount movement speed correctly
  
• Adjustments to chicken collision and walk angle
  
• Fix a tri-state ambigutiy with voxels being unmined/partially mined/fully mined (Zeb)
  

[/expand]

Future Content
[expand]

• Added updated version of the ghillie suit to the project
  
• Update turret recipes
  
• Update turret player facing names
  
• Added idle modifier for turrets to use less power, updated description to mention
  
• Reduced number of stats that show on turrets for easier parsing
  
• Resave CHAC Pistol muzzle flash position
  
• Increased CHAC Pistol fire rate and reload speed slightly
  
• Update turret activity colors to differentiate between out of ammo and actively firing easier
  
• Adding 3RD person and Gun animation for the CHAC pistol reload, just need to hide and unhide the clip in 3RD person left hand
  
• Updated Turret combined meshes
  
• Updated meshes for Turrets
  
• Fixing sprinting with CHAC pistol by adding Grip socket for left hand onto the skeleton
  
• Update turret visuals
  
• Add specific exclusions for mounts and passive creatures when targetting, unless the player has damaged them recently
  
• Adding first person vs third person chac pistol audio adjustments and timing and notify adjustments to gun and cloth layers
  
• Updated material and textures for DEP_Turrets, and adjusted size of combined versions
  
• Update turret material to hook up other textures for cleanup
  
• Fix whitespace in tag queries DT
  
• Update Turret placement to use new v2 version
  
• Update Turret ammo counter to better show low ammo counts
  
• Fixed bug where turrets wouldn't make targets hostile when shooting at them.
  
• Disabled nav on turrets to make sure animals didn't walk around behind them to attack.
  
• Fixed bug where nearby hostile creatures wouldn't attack turret if an ally was shot nearby
  
• Tweaked performance of orbital lazer in open world. Made mounts use same damage logic as players for orbital lazer
  
• Increased the basic pistol round damage from 100 -> 150
  
• Added a new Workshop Pistol ammo which deals 200 damage per shot
  
• Adding new workshop pistol ammo bundle
  
• Adding Dark Brown Laika Dog, Workshop Item, Items, AI Setup etc
  
• 
  

[/expand]

Performance improvement is an activity we undertake constantly, but it is a bit like prospecting for gold in that it can be a lot of work with no outcome. This week, we have some specific performance improvements for late-game hitching.

We’re rolling out the late-game hitching fix we’ve been discussing for the last two weeks after some rigorous testing. Simply-put, this will reduce or eliminate the hitching when traversing the map in open worlds that you've been playing on for a while.

[h3]Why don't we do performance every week?[/h3]
People often say this in comments. In fact, we work on performance constantly at significant project expense. This work is very exploratory. In this case, our solution was extremely complex and risky. It involved redeveloping our custom voxel mesh generation to be multithreaded, combining several of the most complex areas of programming together. Results in performance optimizations don't come in a straight line, so we can't promise performance optimization work comes out constantly.

This reworks how the game loads the states of mined rock voxels, splitting these onto a separate thread so it takes the strain off the main game thread.

We’ve also got an update on our next task, converting over some more of the Styx and Olympus missions into Open World Operations.

Jump in and have a read.

• The destroy button while examining the player's loadout in space will now destroy items as intended, allowing players to remove unwanted items from their space loadout
  
• Cats and other animals will no longer revert to their base coloring when they are sent up to and retrieved from space (Black cats will now stay black)
  
• Updated Hyena Bait to require Gamey Meat instead of Fatty T-bone, so requires Antelope or Deer kills instead of Bears
  
• Fixed Deep Ore Drills from not scaling their speed correctly and updated the UI to reflect the new value
  
• Terrenus will no longer spawn on easy Outposts making them a safer environment and added Buffalo spawns to Forest Outposts
  
• Balance pass on Crossbow prices as they were not priced correctly. They have been brought in line with other workshop items and earlier ones have had a massive price reduction
  
• When obtaining Seeds from Crop Plots they no longer come with the “Grown By Prospector” Stat meaning they can be stacked with Wild Seeds
  
• Adding allow lists on water and food troughs so you can mark nearby animals as allowed to drink / eat from
  

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Last week we talked about the improvements we wished to make to the ‘state’ of the mined stone deposits around the map. This was a project we were aiming to include in last week's patch but it was pulled out because of some unresolved issues that came up during testing. This week, it passed the internal testing phase and is ready for the public branch.

[h3]What is Late Game?[/h3]
Over time a prospect contains more and more "data" that is a delta from the base map data. Originally the game as developed for temporary prospects, and so a lot of the systems were not constructed for the scale Open World ends up with. So when we talk about Late Game, we mean after a number of hours in an Open World prospect, or even a long running mission.

[h3]What is hitching?[/h3]
Hitching can be caused by many reasons and we have progressively released fixes for many of these, but there have still been the occasional source of hitches. The end result looks the same, so it can be frustrating for users when we say we have fixed a source of hitching - but it appears not to be because they still experience it. Simply put, hitching is when the game "runs out of time" when preparing what to show on the screen. So to solve this, we need to offload the work somewhere. This specific instance of hitching occurred because as you ran around, voxels that had been mined would be loaded in - but their meshes generated on the main thread and were not multithreaded. Now they are and so the hitching is avoided.

For those who may have not read our last two posts, check out this excerpt from last week's blog:

The change we’re implementing is to do with how objects are loaded and unloaded. When these objects are loaded in, it happens simultaneously with all other objects in the area. As you traverse the map, you load different zones which then require all objects in that area to load. The process we’re specifically looking at here is loading in previously mined stone deposits in the state the player left them (that is every pickaxe swing that was done on the object). Due to the fact all of this loading (it could be in the thousands of instances) happens in one frame, it can cause hitches. This is especially bad at some points across the three different maps - and depending on where you are - you can constantly be loading and unloading these objects due to their relevancy range.

The change involves placing all this ‘logic of loading’ on a separate thread allowing these objects to load in the background while you are playing rather than in a single instance on the main game thread. One of the interesting things about splitting things out to be on separate threads is that you can’t have the main thread or separate threads interacting with the same object simultaneously, otherwise, the data becomes corrupted and can be forced into bad states.

This improvement will now be rolled out to all players, and we’ll still be looking at feedback and bug reports to make sure there are no other issues that may have slipped through. We’ll also be looking at performance reports, and analyzing the impact on late-game hitches across a range of different prospects.


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We are currently in the third phase of converting over missions on Styx and Olympus to ‘Operations’ that can be played in Open World.

[h3]Why aren't the Missions all Operations?[/h3]
Simply, time and complexity. Certain missions weren’t converted over to operations due to many reasons, including suitability to an Open World format, but also some requiring complete rebuilding to work in the new Operation system. We also wanted time to see how we needed to adjust our game in general, including and perhaps especially performance in Open World. Now things are more stable, we can look at moving more and more missions to Operations.

These ‘trickier’ missions are currently the ones receiving this work to convert them into Operations, and due to the extent of the reworking required, these will take some time to do. There will also be a robust testing process, as these changes will require them to be treated as ‘new operations’ and all steps and stages will have to go through the trial phase again.

The aim of this project is to provide more operations for people to play in Open World, and to make it so all content can be enjoyed in whatever format players prefer to play it in.

However, certain ‘exploration’ missions just do not work in an Open World game. Ultimately this is because these missions were developed to provide an exploration experience before there even was an Open World mode. Now that you can travel anywhere without limits, those missions are now pointless.

Currently, these are unlocked automatically in the mission tree when you complete the prior mission, and these may even be removed in the future if we feel they are more of a roadblock than content for players.


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We mentioned last week that we were going to deliver Laika and the Pug this week, but the extent of the performance improvements meant we focused our entire effort on that instead. We have pushed these two new pooches to next week so we can spend some more time testing them out.


[hr][/hr][h2]Your support makes these updates possible.[/h2]

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/40692/Icarus_Pets_Bundle/

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/35727/Icarus_Complete_the_Set/

[hr][/hr]

New Content
[expand]

• Added various optimisations to voxel initialisation
  
• Voxel initialisation is now asynchronous - should reduce hitching when moving around level containing partially mined voxels
  
• Food and Water troughs now support 'allowlists' to only let certain NPCs interact with them, configure these lists by interacting with the deployed troughs
  
• Fixed issue where dog would sometimes just sit there barking at you, waiting for stick to be thrown, even though you'd already thrown it
  
• Added dynamic movement to dog tails
  
• Dogs should correctly turn to face you while waiting for you to throw the stick
  

[/expand]

Fixed
[expand]

• Update Mammoth Tusk item material to use bone hit effects instead of flesh
  
• Swapped added the bool stat to the mount to adding a modifier to the mount so theres a visual representation
  
• Update solo tree infobox to clarify that normal talents still apply when solo
  
• Add translatable string to solo tree inactive text
  
• Quick pass over talent placement to ensure consistent height / placement of benches and crafts
  
• Adding activate and deactivate audio for carts so the player knows when the state has been changed. Audio, event and replicated BP imp
  
• Add a check before the spawn location check to prevent autonomous spawns (Kea, Dreadwing, Drifters) from spawning if the player is within range of a spawn blocker
  
• Added Buffalo to Forest outposts
  
• Fixing single wall light trying to deploy the ceiling light instead
  
• Fixing single wall light on/off texture swaps as it was swapping out the wrong material slot
  
• Removed Item.Medicine from Medicine Bag (so it doesn't go inside itself)
  
• Added Any_Bag and Any_Backpack to sign icon options
  
• Fixed Deep Ore drills not scaling with their speed stat
  
• Updated drill UI to reflect area level scalling added recently
  
• Fixed chat box expanding with mount hp
  
• Fixed drop mesh for farming carts
  
• Fixed Seeding Cart icon
  
• Update Hyena Bait to require Gamey Meat instead of Fatty Tbone, so requires Antelope or Deer kills instead of Bears
  
• Fixed bug where cats and other animals would reset back to default colouring when retrieved from space
  
• Increase visible loadout slots and increased width of grid
  
• Added translatable strings to Orbital Exchange Interface
  
• Added extra functionality to water/food troughs to only allow creatures that have been whitelisted to interact
  
• Fix a guard condition when performing async voxel init
  
• Fixed new, consumption-related bug where AI combat behaviour wasn't being set correctly
  
• Added in extra logging to help track down issue with disappearing tames/mounts. Added validation to prevent instance of crash inside ProcessingComponent. Removed Styx_D_Escort debug sphere
  
• Changed the focused item to be the saddle youre sitting on along with its active state if it has an active state
  
• Scaled Dog_D down to 0.75x, adjusted locomotion set, adjusted max speed stat
  
• Removed editor-only flag check to fix build from failing
  
• Ensure no longer thrown for Mounts that haven't begun play yet
  
• Ensure no longer thrown for EditorPreviewActor mounts
  
• Removing Seeds 'grown by' stat so they can be stacked no matter what source they are obtained from
  
• Fixed stuttering movement on clients with Dog_C and D
  
• Resave crossbow workshop positioning
  
• Fixed bad movement setup on tamed Boar, resulting in significantly more movement speed than before
  
• Fixing Workshop Costs for the crossbows - the prices had not been balanced, the 2 earlier crossbows have had a dramatic price reduction, while the two later ones have been reorganised in the tree, one increased in price slightly and the other reduced
  
• TEMPEST: Fixed Stalker being named Striker
  
• Prevent placement of extractors on depleted exotic deposits
  

[/expand]

Future Content
[expand]

• Added stats for CHAC brand of workshop firearms
  
• Added text for CHAC rifle
  
• Adding Butchery and Advanced Butchery Bench
  
• Initial eagle setup checkin with base assets and anim bp, proper behavior tree to follow
  
• Added BLD_Railing_Thatch_Gate, BLD_Railing_Wood_INT_Gate, BLD_Railing_Reinforced_Wood_Gate, BLD_Railing_Iron_Gate, BLD_Railing_Concrete_Gate with animations
  
• Fix CHAC pistol muzzle flash position
  
• Slight resize and reposition of turret ammo indicator
  
• Turret player communications / visual pass: added light below the turret to signify ammo and target acquisition and added bars for ammo capacity to frame
  
• Fixed Pug fur not displaying correctly on NPC or Corpse. Reduced foot sliding in Pug AnimBP. Reduced Pug's default movement speed. Fixed Pug physics asset. Fixed Pug NPC using the wrong base class
  
• Fixed missing texture information on the bottom of the feet of the pug mesh, for both the regular and carcass textures
  
• Added 'Any_medicine' to the list of queries to put on the signs. Added item.medicine to the medical bag so it also counts as a medical item for sign use
  
• Basic Pass of Laika and Pug Item Setup
  
• Changed Terrenus to spawn based on the Bear spawn stat, this means they won't spawn on Easy Outposts and will have reduced spawn chance on easy difficulty missions/open world. This is a placeholder until new spawnstats are added
  
• Adding Pug Trophy
  
• Adding in base setup for Laika Assets, as well as harness model for future use, awaiting carcass textures
  
• Added functionality to the destroy button in hab loadouts
  
• Adding laika dog data table setup and adjustments to generic hand feed cre sound and updated correct feed water sound. Spacializer settings changes to pug and laika
  
• Added Laika corpse, more improvements to physics asset, cleaned up laika asset redirectors
  
• Improved Dog_D physics asset. Added asset validation for invalid NPC capsules
  
• Added 2 trophies for Laika as well as the carcass textures and materials on behalf of Marcos
  
• Adding Laika Trophies, Jumpsuit item icons, and recipes
  
• Added Laika harness and support for non-ridable tame equipment not inheriting from SeatBase
  
• Fixed Laika carcass name
  
• Small adjustment to laika and pug dog volumes of flinch and death
  
• Added new AnimBP for Dog_B
  
• Added extra movement to dog tails (some breeds more than others). Dogs will now wag their tails faster if they're looking at you
  
• Fixed issue where dog would sometimes just sit there barking at you, waiting for stick to be thrown, even though you'd already thrown it
  
• Added small amount of blended physics simulation to dog tails (and Laika's ears). Dogs should correctly turn to face you while waiting for you to throw the stick
  
• Adding Icons for Laika's Jumpsuit and adjusted recipe costs
  
• Feature locked new dog talents and recipes, pending future release
  

[/expand]

Welcome to Week 128.

After a couple of big weeks of Project Clinic updates, we’re returning to our normal cadence and making some changes to the carts we recently introduced in Laika - letting you ride them rather than just lead them as they operate.

We’ve also got some more information on the performance work we’re currently undertaking, particularly the mined stone deposit loading threads we discussed last week.

Finally, we’ve got news on what to expect next week - hint, you’re going to need a bigger dog bed.

Jump in and have a read.

• Adding small dog drinking and eating animation duplicates for montages and adding unique audio for both sizes to differentiate between the small and big dogs
  
• Updated modifier times on tooltips to show in minutes if over 120 seconds
  
• Added APEX DM meshes, as well as many of their blueprints, for multiple buildable assets for all tiers
  
• Removed the ability to jump while riding mounts that have a cart attached
  
• Fixed issued with building pieces not hiding foliage paired with a slight GPU optimization
  
• Fixed sticks going to hotbar instead of backpack.
  

[hr][/hr]
We’re taking the three animal farming carts added in the recent Laika update and making a big improvement.

Carts will now be able to be ridden while farming, no longer restricted to only being led.

The current mounts usable with carts are Buffalo and Tuskar, and when you now equip a Seeding/Harvesting/Watering cart it’ll apply to the base saddle you ride on. You can also interact with the mount both when riding and when next to it, so you can control whether the device is active or not.

The Watering Cart will also fill itself up from nearby sources when it interacts with the mount, and the watering process will only activate when it comes into contact with a dirt mound.

The Seeding Cart now requires both dirt and seeds, with dirt to create mounds and seeds to plant. If there are no seeds in the inventory but there is dirt, then the cart will create empty dirt mounds, and if there are seeds but no dirt, it’ll only plant when you pass over an empty dirt mound.

The Harvesting Cart will now collect all crops that are ‘harvestable’ that have been created by a player within a small radius of the cart. Bushes and wild flora will not be collected.

The movement speed of the mount being used to pull the cart does have an impact on the speed modifier of the cart, so keep this in mind when using it.


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Last week we talked about the improvements we wished to make specifically with regards to the state of the mined stone deposits around the map. This was something we were aiming to include in our last patch but it was pulled out to do some unresolved crashes and issues that came up in testing. We were also hoping to get it in this week but further work put into it has uncovered some more issues that still require more time to iron out.

The change we’re looking to implement is to do with how mined rocks are loaded and unloaded. As you traverse the map, you load different zones which then require all mined rocks within a relevant range to load in. As part of this loading process not only do we load the objects but we also load the state they were left in (that is every pickaxe swing that was done on the object) and this takes additional time. Due to the fact all of this loading (it could be in the thousands of instances) happens in one frame, it can cause hitches. This is mainly to do with the map being tile based and when one map tile loads, the mined rocks are triggered to load in at the same time. This is especially bad at some points across the three different maps - and depending on where you are - you can constantly be loading tiles and objects due to their relevancy range.

The change we are currently making involves placing all this ‘logic of loading’ on a separate thread allowing these objects to load in the background while you are playing rather than in a single instance on the main game thread. One of the interesting things about splitting things out to be on separate threads is that you can’t have the main thread or separate threads interacting with the same object simultaneously, otherwise, the data becomes corrupted and can be forced into bad states.

We have had some decent success so far with our internal testing and this work seems to have made some strong progress in reducing hitching. We are currently still in a testing phase and will roll this out if and when we believe it is in a stable enough state.


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Next week we plan on adding two new pets, one to the base game as a free pet, and one to the Pet Companions Pack DLC.

The base game will be getting Laika the dog, in celebration of the heroic pooch who was the first four-legged adventurer into space. The Pet Companions Pack will be getting a Pug as a new breed you can bring down from the space station.

[h2]Your support makes these updates possible.[/h2]

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/40692/Icarus_Pets_Bundle/

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/35727/Icarus_Complete_the_Set/
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New Content
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• Added a psuedo saddle for the player to ride on.
  
• Removed the stat that stops players from riding the mount while farming cart is active.
  
• Removed useless stats 'IsSaddleCargoOnly' from itemstatic as it was only being utilized in equippable DT
  
• Added crop plot snapping to dirt frames
  
• Adding correct cart data table entries to new carts added
  
• Added the ability to ride on basic cart
  
• Added a basic saddle to the cost of each cart
  

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Fixed
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• Fixed Stone, Salt and Limestone Noxious crust descriptions mentioning incorrect materials
  
• Fixed Carved Wood Bed weighing 1kg instead of 10kg like other beds
  
• Updated some item descriptions and hints for clarity
  
• Added bestiary text for Dribbo
  
• Added Arctic Moa bestiary text
  
• Fixed a few typos and changed some item names for consistency
  
• Added Arctic Moa bestiary image to the project
  
• Add translatable string entries for relocated quest steps
  
• Fixed Involved In Quest modifier used on quest creatures not showing involved in quest stat text
  
• Adding Laika dog bark vocalisation, data table setup and event
  
• Adding small dog drinking animation and eating animation duplicates for montages and adding unique audio for both to differentiate between the small and big dogs
  
• Added Arctic Moa bestiary stats
  
• Enabled Arctic Moa bestiary entry
  
• Fixed typo in spoiled plants description
  
• Updated modifier times on tooltips to show in minutes if over 120 seconds
  
• Updated modifier to just show provides instead of 1 second duration, for modifiers specifically applied for a single second
  
• Update building RVT blocking to only dynamically spawn if intersecting with ground
  
• Delayed check for RVT spawning to ensure stability calculation has been initialized, checks an additional time after a longer delay, once
  
• Fixed unsaved interactable DT that changed the 'fill from nearby deployables' button to hold X instead of tap F as we now use F for riding the mount.
  
• Removed fur culling mask on the tuskar mount when you remove the cart from the tuskar
  
• IRONCLAD: Added translatable Est. time string
  
• ADVANCED ORDER: Update quest step to refernce Health Recovery Tonic's new name, instead of Health Enhancement Tonic
  
• Removed the ability to jump while riding mounts that have a cart attached
  
• Hide Units Consumed from UI, this confuses players without tweaking UI more
  
• Added translatable string to wind turbine in-world tooltip and salting station close button
  
• Fixed sticks going to hotbar instead of backpack
  
• Fixed an error in the description for the ceiling light
  
• Added ability to consume meds in the medicine pouch
  
• Fixed Seed Bar, Seed Cracker, Honeycomb Bar and Seed Bread status effects not being affected by the Vegetarian talent
  
• Added Stomach Slot information to player inventory
  
• Replace modifiers BaseStaminaConsumed stats with BaseStaminaActionCost, this fixes water modifiers reducing stamina consumption by more than the intended amount
  
• Hid sort from bag UIs (Medicine Satchel, Seed Pouch) as these hold specific items so don't need sorting
  
• Adjusted taming temperatures so creatures found in the arctic are easier to tame in cooler environments and creatures found in warmer environments can be tamed in higher temperatures
  
• Updates to spacialiser settings of seed plough and limiting amount of sow sounds that can be played at once with a cooldown to avoid it playing 3-4 at a time.
  
• Adjusting volume of UI of interracting with plough
  
• Reduced speed of Horses and Terrenus, mainly through reduction of their talents. Both have movement speed increasing talents that reduce the sprint speed, but these are currently not reducing the sprint speed. Will be readdressed when that bug is fixed
  
• Very slight reduction of Moa movement speed
  
• Fix cart saddle audio parameters failing to update if player has dismounted from saddle, potentially causing cart audio to not play or play indefinitely
  
• Added ability to toggle carts on and off while riding the mount. Added 'focusediteminfo' for toggle button
  
• Lots of updates and improvements to the carts. Better spacialization, adjusting pitch speed based on velocity of the cart. Reduction in volume to some layers and reduction in sound size for better riding experience
  
• Updated bonus mining rewards description (notably on Egg based foods) to specifically mention the bonus is stone
  
• Fixed Honey Mead stat order
  
• Changed toggling the harvest cart to be a binding rather than hard coded to 'x'. removed hard references to tuskar and buffalo mounts and instead added a saddle row in the saddles json for psuedo saddle mesh. Added stats to slow down the mounts when cart is active
  
• Fixed building piece grass culling not working after recent changes
  
• Building piece grass culling volume is now centred on building mesh (was previously offset for things like beams or half/quarter pieces)
  
• Buffed Buffalo and Tusker movement speed, but reduced the effect of the movement speed talent while Buffalo is pulling a cart
  
• Reduced movement speed while creatures are pulling a cart
  
• Increased capacity of Pack Saddle
  
• Updated descriptions of carts to no longer mention they are unridible
  
• Updated Medical Satchel description to communicate that it allows instant use of medicine inside
  
• Fixed tooltips showing 0 - 0 Damage when items are not valid (such as blueprint sets)
  

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Future Content
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• Undo changelist 122831
  
• Undo changelist 122804
  
• Undo changelist 122787
  
• Undo changelist 122785
  
• Undo changelist 122781
  
• Add a UE4 Insights stats label for when a tile boundary is crossed 'TILE LOADING' (internal dev)
  
• Added BLD_Stairs_Corner_Wood_R and BLD_Stairs_Corner_Wood_L with their BPs. Will still need to be added to the Datat table, etc
  
• Adding 1ST person CHAC pistol reload to be a clip instead of a single bullet, gun animation still needed as well as 3RD person but thats much trickier to track down, hold please
  
• Updated placement rules for corner stairs
  
• Adding Chac Pistol reload clip audio, events and animation notifys
  
• Added and updated hunter helmet and chest v2 sk meshes, materials and textures
  
• Further fine tunes to chac reload timings
  
• Adjustment to chac reload notify timing
  
• Added APEX DM meshes, as well as many of their blueprints, for multiple buildable assets for all tiers
  
• Fixed material mismatch between SM and APEX DM for BLD_Roof_Peak Connector_Iron
  
• Added half stairs test datatable entries
  
• Added multiple Scoria building skin entries to the D_BuildingSkins Data Table, as well as added sockets the the Half Stairs assets for all tiers, and also adjusted the placement of one of the railing sockets for the regular Thatch stairs
  
• Saving test assets to dev folder
  
• Adding lots more details to the chac pistol. adding cloth moves for various parts to enhance the overall feel etc
  
• Update collision on many Prometheus foliage to allow player overlap
  
• Increased Overflow Bag capacity further for future proofing
  
• Increased stability collision area for dirt ramps and corner ramps
  
• Add widget for future internal cooking balance
  
• Added some extra insights logging to VoxelResource expensive init function
  
• Update delayed shelter checks to only be delayed for pieces previously inside, aka favors the player
  
• Remove burnt (unharvested) trees as part of FibreFoilageRespawn
  
• Remove some history on voxels (GPU compute, treasures). Unroll some loops, precache some vars, add some statics
  
• Further Voxel Code decomposition/refactor (fix the build)
  
• Further Voxel Code decomposition/refactor
  
• Move voxel init to async task for cached meshes (experimental)
  
• Fix issues with voxel thumper reinit after making init async
  

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