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Icarus News

Come join our Free Weekend to celebrate 2 years of Icarus!

Icarus’s first-ever Free Weekend is here!

This has been in the works for some time, and we are excited to finally do one of these and give players who have been on the fence about Icarus the chance to try it out and see all the work that has gone into it over the last two years.

For those unfamiliar with what a Free Weekend is, this is a four-day period over the weekend when anyone can download Icarus and play without having to have purchased the game.

If you’ve got friends you’ve been trying to convince to get the game, this is a great time to get them to come join you with no strings attached.

All content in the Icarus base game will be playable, including Open World and Operations on Olympus. We’ve also put the game itself and a bunch of the DLC on discount so if you enjoy it, you can score a good deal to keep playing long after the Free Weekend finishes.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1149460/ICARUS/

Two Years of Icarus


You may have noticed above we mentioned 2 years of Icarus… well that’s because this week is also the 2 year anniversary since the launch of Icarus and 2 years straight of weekly updates!

The game has changed dramatically in two years, with a ton of new features and content added after release based on player feedback. The work we’ve put in has only been matched by your enthusiasm to play it, and we feel very lucky to be able to continue working with the community to make the game even bigger and better.

How much has the game changed since its launch?

We launched with:
  • 35 timed missions
  • 140+ craftable items
  • 1 64sqkm map
  • 95 building pieces
  • 240 talents
  • 1 map
  • 2 modes (missions and outposts)

And today we have:
  • 108 Missions, 52 Operations and 11 SMPL3 Quests
  • 1140+ craftable items
  • 375 building pieces
  • 248 talents and 28 solo talents
  • 4 Mounts
  • 3 maps
  • 3 modes (missions, outposts and Open World)

It’s incredible to see how far this game has come and we couldn’t have done it without you. Thank you to every single person who has played Icarus and made memories in it.

Join us for our Free Weekend Twitch stream


If you didn’t already know, our team streams twice a week over on twitch.tv/rocketwerkz, playing Icarus and other titles from the studio including Stationeers and some up-and-coming projects.

We’re doing a massive Free Weekend stream to celebrate our 2 year anniversary, where we’ll be playing with multiple studio members and doing a bunch of giveaways. As part of the birthday celebration we've also discounted our entire merch store!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

If you like what we’re doing with Icarus, and want to support our continued development, consider purchasing one of our DLCs for a few dollars, it would mean a lot to us.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2445280/Icarus_Interior_Decorations_Pack

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

Icarus Week 104 Update | New Seed Pouches for storing your seeds

Our Week 104 update is here. This week we’re adding Seed Pouches, a Tier 1 item that will store your seeds gathered while out exploring.

We’ve also got an update on Batteries and next week's update. You’ll also have probably noticed this update is a day early, which is intentional and will make sense tomorrow, so keep an eye out for some news.

Jump in and have a read.

Notable Improvements:
  • Permit sprint cancels reload on magazine and round fed weapons, if enabled in the control settings
  • In the Kill List operation, creatures now also spawn outside of mission area
  • Added the building tier to building piece tooltips
  • Added a 'Z' collision offset so you can more freely place rugs on top of floors with beams beneath them


This week: Seed Pouches


This week we’re adding the Seed Pouch, a new Tier 1 item crafted on your character and acts as a storage system from within your inventory for any seeds you collect.

This requires 20 fiber and 10 leather and will store 6 different seeds in stacks of up to 400. Any seeds you collect will automatically be stored in the Seed Pouch if it has room - rather than in your inventory.

Effectively, this should free up 5 inventory slots while you harvest wild plants or farming.

You can use the context menu from within your inventory to access the seed pouch, similar to how you break fish into chunks.



Coming Soon: Batteries


We’ve been busy testing out the new batteries system over the past week. Our internal feedback is that the interaction and flow of the changes feels a lot better with the tweaks we’ve made over the last couple of weeks.

We are looking to do some open testing in the next few weeks, so if you’d be interested in participating, come join the experimental branch channel in our Discord to get all the details.



Next Week: UI QoL Improvements


Next week we’re bringing some QoL improvements to the in-game UI, and some other content that we’ll keep a secret until then.

A lot of the improvements have come from suggestions and feedback in our Feature Upvote page, so make sure you keep using this when you want to communicate with the team.



If you like what we’re doing with Icarus, and want to support our continued development, consider purchasing one of our DLCs for a few dollars, it would mean a lot to us.

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

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/34141/Icarus_Outposts_Bundle/

Changelog v2.1.7.118077


New Content
[expand]
  • Unlocking Seed Pouch Talent Recipe and upping seed stack count to 200 -> 400

[/expand]

Fixed
[expand]
  • Updated shadow geo for Prometheus
  • Update new player welcome messagee
  • Permit sprint cancels reload on magazine and round feed weapons, if enabled under control settings
  • Adding venom sac data for correct sounds to play
  • Small volume adjustment for venom sac pick up
  • Make sprint cancel reload respect Settings > Controls option
  • Added a 'z' collision offset so you can more freely place rugs ontop of floor with beams beneath them
  • Drill UMG now takes into account the drill speed
  • Update description for Settings > Controls > sprint cancel reload
  • Replaced the tuskers physics asset with the buffalos to prevent tusker mesh folding in on itself on death
  • Added building tier to buildable tooltips
  • Fixed spacing on set tooltips due to hidden building tier text
  • Increased resistances and insulation on brick building tiers, this helps avoiding confusion why these tiers are worse than stone
  • Removed forced upper case on building tier tooltip on item sets
  • Linked translatable text for Operations button in C0NT4CT device
  • Fixed typo in Bestiary Weakness Unlock notification
  • Fixed Bestiary biome for Wooly Zebra
  • Fixed Komodo reference in Ashen Drake bestiary lore
  • Added translatable text for fuel UI
  • Updated refresh rate for fuel UI to prevent numbers jumping by 2
  • KILL LIST: Fixed creatures not spawning outside of mission area

[/expand]

Future Content
[expand]
  • Submitting Mini Hippo carcass and textures
  • Resubmitting carcass mask map due to texture group mistake
  • Decal Pass, Fixed Macro Cliff Blocking Cave and Cliff Pass, Ashlands, Prometheus
  • General Polish Pass/bug fixes, Ice Sheet Yellow Quad on Prometheus
  • Field Guide Add some more logging to help categorize items (internal dev)
  • Field Guide Add a black list category
  • Setup for manual caves and Cliff pass, Ashlands, Prometheus
  • Submitting Mini Hippo 1st variation carcass and textures
  • Small adjustment to scorpion crossbow based on updated animations
  • Fix Action DT validation
  • Updated Cave Volume, landscape sculpting and General Polish Pass for cave network, Ice Sheet Yellow Quad on Prometheus
  • Field Guide prevent back button initial action
  • Added DEP_WaterPurifier_T2
  • Added DEP_Trophy_IceMammoth, DEP_Trophy_IceMammoth_Chandelier, DEP_Trophy_IceMammoth_LightStand
  • Field Guide show output counts in recipe outputs
  • Set dressing Cave, added cave volume, void and General Polish Pass for cave network, Ice Sheet Yellow Quad on Prometheus
  • Adding first pass setup and sounds for scorpion rifle fire and last shot fire sounds etc and data table entry
  • Ground Cliff Pass, Landscape Sculpting Pass and Added a Deep Ore Deposit, Ashlands, Prometheus
  • Submitting Mini Hippo second variation carcass and textures
  • Adding internal / external sounds for scorpion gun. Replacing gun layers with separated layers
  • Improve turret prototype
  • Fixed item popup building tier showing on all items (dev only)
  • Adding item icons for the biomass items, black wolf fur and venom sack items
  • Adding meshes for the biomass items
  • Added BLD_Floor_Diagonal_Stone, APEX DM still needs to be done
  • Added BLD_Wall_Diagonal_Solid_Stone, APEX DM still needs to be done

[/expand]


Icarus Week 103 Update | Polar Bear and Brown Bear Rugs

Week 103’s update brings two new rugs to Icarus, which require pelts and vestiges from two of the most fearsome foes - the Polar Bear and the Brown Bear.

These are craftable at Tier 3 on the Advanced Textile Bench, so get to gathering those materials and crafting.

In addition to cosmetic updates like these Rugs, we’re always working on new features and performance improvements and we have an update on big improvements coming to animals and taming, and batteries.

Jump in and have a read.

Notable Improvements
  • Updated the Brutalist Wardrobe & Cabinet and Industrial Wardrobe & Cabinet to have 25 inventory slots as originally intended (rather than 10)
  • Updated recipes for cooking, Masonry Bench and Armor Bench to allow access to T2 recipes in both T3 and T4
  • Added recipe for Gold Partition for Art Deco set which was accidentally hidden
  • Fixed travel quest step detection for mounted players, allowing those steps to be completed while mounted more reliably
  • Fixed a bug with inventory spoilage where there were some specific cases where spoil times of items would not increase as intended


This Week: New Animal Rugs


This week's update brings two new Rugs to Icarus, from the pelts of the most feared predators on Icarus, the Polar Bear and Brown Bear.

These require some unique materials including Vestiges, Arctic Pelts, Fur, Cured Leather and Platinum Weave.

These are unlockable on the Advanced Textiles bench at Tier 3 and require the ‘advanced rug set’ to be unlocked.



Coming Soon: Batteries


Batteries development is making good progress, and we’ve now done the initial refactor of the resource network system. From here, we’re testing and checking individual machines and how they interact with these changes and ironing out any bugs that crop up.

We’re also working on some tools for players to debug their systems and machines when these changes are implemented, so you can avoid the typical trial-and-error approach and get right to the problem.



Early Preview: Animal Expansion


We’re currently working on an expansion to the animal and mounts system in Icarus with some big improvements and new systems with a lot to interact with.

Tamed creatures will be receiving their own XP and leveling system, which comes with their own talent trees that you can invest points into. They will also have their own buff system and can gain two active modifiers from the food they consume, similar to how players have three.

We’re also investigating a solution for being able to bring tamed creatures up to the Orbital Station and back down with you on other prospects, so you can invest more into your furry pals and utilize them across multiple expeditions.

All of these features are in development with substantial testing and iteration needed before being released, but we wanted to give you an update on our work and will continue to do so.



Next Week: Seed Pouch


Next week we’re adding a new ‘Seed Pouch’. This is a bag that can be carried in your inventory and acts as specialist seed storage which can be opened using the context menu. Seeds you pick up are automatically placed in the pouch and we’ve increased the stack size as well.

Ideally, this should clean up your inventory when foraging, and allow you to actually collect more seeds without having to compromise for other necessary items.



If you like what we’re doing with Icarus, and want to support our continued development, consider purchasing one of our DLCs for a few dollars, it would mean a lot to us.

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

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/34141/Icarus_Outposts_Bundle/

Changelog v2.1.6.117855


New Content
[expand]
  • Unlocking new Rug Recipes and Talent

[/expand]

Fixed
[expand]
  • Slight adjustments on the wall light and gold chandelier gold decoration. Removed the emissive material from a small section
  • Fixed typo in Prometheus map selection warning
  • Fixed unlinked confirmation and cancel buttons on terrain selection
  • Adding new event for metal wall cupboard closing. Retiming to fit animation and adding a new socket for audio
  • Updating items in the deployable table for glass metal
  • Added new collision type for NPC capsule that allows QuestQuery overlaps
  • Fixed mounted players not being counted for travel quest steps
  • Fix a merge issue in the string table
  • Fixed signs not showing fertilizer icons. Added a new tag query for signs to check against 'Any Fertilizer'
  • Fixing bear Cub having the wrong PM causing it to not have a flesh impact sound when hit
  • Updated recipes for cooking, masonry bench and armor bench to allow access to T2 recipes in both T3 and T4
  • Locked Industrial Set behind level 20, as the set requires steel screws (any players that have already unlocked the talent will keep it)
  • Fixed Roat Trophy not granting Bestiary Points
  • Added recipe for Gold Partition for Art Deco set
  • Updating Processing Recipes to Remove the Alpha Wolf Rug as it is not ready yet
  • Fixed storage tag on Industrial and Brutalist storage options, allowing them to benefit from additional storage talent
  • Fixed a bug causing the player stat container to update every frame which also caused the inventory weight to recalculate and the spoil update timer to restart
  • Updating Brutalist Wardrobe& Cabinet, Industrial Wardrobe & Cabinet to have 25 inventory slots rather than 10 as intended

[/expand]

New Content
[expand]
  • Field Guide breaks bestiary, fishing and items into separate tabs
  • Decal pass, Ground cliff pass and Landscape Sculpting, Ashlands, Prometheus
  • Updated Caves Network & landscape clean up, Ice Sheet Yellow Quad on Prometheus
  • Added DCO_NeonSign_RocketWerkz
  • Fixed physics asset for the scorpion crossbow by redoing the physics bodies, fixed animations not playing correctly by using correct anim BP in the SkeletalItem BP entry in D_Meshable
  • Field Guide - Add a back button for items view
  • Updated Cave Entrance trigger for cave network, Ice Sheet Yellow Quad on Prometheus
  • Added Macro Cliffs to Open area and Cliff Pass, Ashlands, Prometheus
  • Added snow variant materials for CaveFloor meshes (MI_ROCK_SW_CaveFloor_XX_SNOW)
  • Added Nav Blockers, Ice Sheet Yellow Quad on Prometheus
  • Ground cliff pass and Decal Pass, Ashlands, Prometheus
  • Fixed has no cave entrance, Ice Sheet Yellow Quad on Prometheus
  • Ground cliff pass and Decal Pass, Ashlands, Prometheus
  • General Polish Pass & Cave fixes, Ice Sheet Yellow Quad on Prometheus
  • Submitting Mini Hippo 2nd variation
  • Adding Scorpion Weapon Living Weapon initial setup
  • WIP commit of Biomass mesh, materials, textures (ITM/ITM_Biomass)
  • Scorpion Rifle - added static mesh versions of stocks
  • Updated Field Guide Item categories
  • Fixed some item tags and added extra filters, as required for Field Guide
  • Biomass samples - mesh and material variants, tweaked textures. Added new master material MA_GLS_Emissive for emissive glass
  • Fixed incorrectly enabling of Items section of Field Guide
  • Decal pass, Ground Cliff Pass and Landscape Sculpting, Ashlands, Prometheus
  • Field Guide Resave Datatable
  • Initial implementation of 9 of Diamonds shield
  • Field Guide Add how to obtain
  • Initial implementation of Inaris sickles

[/expand]

Icarus Week 102 Update | Rare high tier Ores now found in Deep Ore Veins

Week 102 is here and features new Deep Ore Veins of Titanium, Platinum, Salt, Clay, Scoria and Obsidian for you to drill.

We’ve also enabled Exotic voxels in Open World caves which will replenish using the Meteor Shower event we debuted last week.

This week we’ve also released two new architectural DLC, an Industrial Furniture Set with 36 pieces and an Art Deco Furniture Set with 26 pieces for you to purchase and adorn your base with. These support our ongoing development of Icarus and are some of the most detailed and unique pieces we’ve released to date.

Jump in and have a read.

Notable Improvements
  • Exotic voxels will now spawn in Open World caves, these will replenish with Meteor Shower events
  • You can now place deployables on top of rugs which was previously blocked
  • Vapor Condenser rewards have been updated to include Enzymes in addition to Exotics when in its ‘active state’ which as of last week includes Open Worlds
  • Fixed Teenage Caveworm and Landshark dropping Caveworm loot rather than their respective loot table


This Week: New Deep Ore Veins


New Deep Ore Veins have been added to all three existing maps. The new resources available include Platinum, Titanium and Salt on Olympus, Styx and Prometheus - and Clay, Scoria and Obsidian exclusive to Prometheus.

This adds some of the higher tier ores as options for your set-and-forget drills, and make those longer Open World sessions where resources become more scarce, easier to manage.

A big reason for the addition of these new veins has been to introduce these resources earlier for players in their sessions. Salt for example offers value in food preservation, so it makes longer journeys more accessible earlier in the game.

The addition of Clay, Scoria, and Obsidian also makes the Lava biome more accessible earlier in Prometheus, and Obsidian weapons offer great advantages when venturing into the Arctic. These have also been added to the Deep Mining Ore Scanner's and the veins are locatable with this device.

A lot of these have come via community requests and suggestions, so keep these coming in Feature Upvote. We’ve added more veins in total also, so you won’t find other resources now more diluted in the overall available pool.

There’s also now a chance to find Exotic voxels in Open World caves on all three maps. These will replenish with Meteor Shower events we introduced last week.



Each Week: Performance


While it may not be mentioned in our weekly blog each week, performance is an ongoing part of our work, and those who dive into the detailed changelog below will notice some of the improvements we’re making week-on-week.

As part of the performance work, we have been looking at a way to reduce the impact of loading across the map which can cause stutters. This is mainly focusing on adjusting the way caves are spawned in, and we’ve had some early positive results, but this is still very much in the early stages of testing.

We have also been looking into what impact we can have in reducing the pack sizes of the game and therefore the download size. As some of you have mentioned before, the process of downloading and patching the updates can be lengthy, due to the stark differences in how Unreal Engine packages build and how Steam wants to unpack them. What we’re hoping is this work will improve the download speed, which will at least impact this positively. This will go through rigorous testing before being released, but if all goes well this should be out in the future.

Industrial & Art Deco Packs


https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/36462/Icarus_Architecture_Bundle/

We’re releasing two new Architectural DLC this week - the Industrial Furniture Pack and the Art Deco Furniture Pack.

[h2]Industrial Pack[/h2]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2679990/Icarus_Industrial_Furniture_Pack/

The Industrial Furniture Pack comes with two sets of items in their own theme and design. These are Industrial and Brutalist.

The Industrial Set includes 18 items in dark tones of black marble and flecked silver. These have a rough and practical design with sharp edges and little in the way of excess material, creating a dark yet simple feel to any room they adorn.

The Brutalist Set includes 18 items also, with an even more simplistic concrete approach, but a tad more design flair in their craftsmanship. These pieces have a geometric flair that applies the concepts of minimalism and physics to create timeless yet simple pieces that can blend into any environment.

The Industrial Set is unlockable at level 10 and craftable at the Decorations Bench with Iron Ingots and Steel Screws. The Brutalist Set is unlockable at level 20 and also craftable on the Decorations Bench, with the added material of Concrete required.

[h2]Art Deco Pack[/h2]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2686540/Icarus_Art_Deco_Furniture_Pack/

The Art Deco Furniture Pack is also available, and is by far our most lavish and luxurious set yet.

Including 26 items, this set includes pieces such as Chandeliers, Candlesticks, Safes, Vault style storage units and Rugs among other pieces, all adorned in lavish gold with gun metal grey highlights and a decadent, twirling design that brings a sense of class to any room you place them in.

Designed to celebrate the night sky above, the solar system theme can be found in every piece of the set, and the rich gold tones will shimmer in any light that bounces off it, be it from the Fireplace, Chandeliers or Candles.

The Art Deco Set is unlockable at level 20 and craftable on the Decorations Bench, and requires Gold Ingots, Platinum Weave and Steel to craft.

[h2]Support our work with these DLC[/h2]

After 102 weeks of free updates, you can imagine the amount of work we have poured into Icarus is substantial, nearing the two-year mark of dedicated work and new content being added to the game.

Making games such as Icarus is expensive, and while other studios might have the size to sustain it, we are a much smaller team than our compatriots that produce the other games you love.

All our DLC support the ongoing development of Icarus, and without them we’d have to ask questions about the project's sustainability.

DLC such as these are concepted, then modeled and rigged by our art team, before being added to the game by the designers and having the lore and narrative for them written by our writers, and any sound created and added by our audio engineers. They even go through our tech and testing teams who make sure their features work and they don’t negatively impact performance. Even the Steam page for them and this weekly blog talking about them is done by our Marketing team, so everyone in the studio has a hand in bringing them to life, just like every other feature we do, be it free content or paid.

It really helps us out when you guys get behind the smaller pieces of the game we put out, as it keeps us moving forward and being able to work on the content, improvements and patches we bring out in our free updates. Thank you to everyone who has already bought any of our DLC, and we hope these give you something else to add to your bases.



Next Week: New Animal Rugs


Next week’s update will bring two new Animal Rugs for you to craft and adorn your bases with. These are Bear and Polar Bear Rugs, the true sign of a dangerous hunter when adorning their home.

These will require vestiges, pelts, fur and leather, so if you want to craft these the moment they launch, start gathering your materials now.



If you like what we’re doing with Icarus, and want to support our continued development, consider purchasing one of our DLCs for a few dollars, it would mean a lot to us.

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

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/34141/Icarus_Outposts_Bundle/

Changelog v2.1.5.117759


New Content
[expand]
  • Added deep ore deposits to all quads, Styx
  • Permit exotic voxels in open world, replenish exotic voxels as part of 'timed meteor replenish event'
  • Enabling salt, platinum, titanium deep ore nodes
  • Enabling spawning of clay, obsidian, scoria deep ore nodes on Prometheus

[/expand]


Fixed
[expand]
  • Fixed a few more instances of the word wooly being used in place of shaggy for the Shaggy Zebra
  • Fixed an issue where trophies were using the name wooly zebra instead of shaggy zebra
  • Added a tag you can add to items that will allow things to be stacked on it. 'Buildings.Stackable'
  • Added item classifications (recipe filters) for each decoration set, and statues
  • EL CAMINO: Fixed loot granting Health Paste instead of the new Health Enhancement Tonic

[/expand]


Future Content
[expand]
  • Added text for Art Deco set
  • Added deep ore deposits to all quads, Olympus
  • Adding Art Deco Items, Talents, Icons Etc
  • Adding Packflags for Industrial & Art Deco Packs
  • Adding new cheat to spawn item sets based off itemtemplate prefix
  • Adding first pass molotov VFX and Materials. Added new effects to BP_Payload_Molotov
  • Adding correct socket to axe attack whoosh animations to fix whoosh not following the hand. Small adjustment to spacial to balance against now moving whooshes
  • Added chimney caps for the art deco fireplace
  • Resaving the data table with the inhaler audio so its pointing to the right data row
  • Added emissive element to art deco wall light
  • Added destructible meshes + material for Art Deco Fireplace (base, mid, extension) and Vase
  • Added deep ore deposits to all quads, Prometheus
  • Added destructable meshs for art deco assets
  • Added missing DM for DCO_BedSingle_ArtDeco
  • Ice Mammoth - CAC maps and material setup for ice pieces
  • Yellow Quad on Prometheus
  • Added final Art deco assets to the project. Nightstand, bookshelf, and vault
  • Added most remaining Art Deco furniture items, as well as assgned proper PMs to all Art Deco materials
  • Manual Cave Pass, Foliage Pass and Placement of Obsidion and Scoria, Ashlands, Prometheus
  • Added Voxels & Set Dressing Pass, Ice Sheet Yellow Quad on Prometheus
  • Scorpion Rifle - added remaining textures/materials, set up mesh LODs, collision, physics assets
  • Submitting Mini Hippo and textures
  • Added recipes for the Brutalist furniture set
  • Fixed recipes for the Industrialist furniture set
  • Adding biolab inhaler audio, event and data table entries
  • Added art assets for art deco wardrobe, safe, dresser and chandelier
  • Added Several more assets for the Art Deco Furniture set
  • Added Voxels & Set Dressing Pass, Ice Sheet Yellow Quad on Prometheus
  • Voxel pass and cliff polish pass, ashlands, prometheus
  • Shortening more overly long audio files
  • WIP commit of materials and textures for Scorpion Rifle
  • Small balance adjustment to the scorpion crossbow
  • Round 2 of adjusting any long files (over 50 seconds) to shorter versions for better efficiency
  • Field Guide resources and tools first pass
  • More work on molotov VFX, Fire effect now rotates to impact normal
  • Reducing excessively long audio event so not too many instances play at once
  • Adjusted LODs on art deco safe
  • Field Guide clickable navigation on icons (between categories)
  • Adding deploy gold deco sound to all gold decorations
  • Adding Gold decorations deploy audio and event
  • Adding Destructible Meshes for the remaining Art Deco Set
  • Removing unused talent and renaming gold -> art deco
  • Adding Art Deco in world droppable mesh
  • Adding in Art Deco Fireplace & Caps
  • Freed up additional linked objects from the IcarusActor header file
  • Freed up additional linked objects
  • Field Guide - fix the build again (missing WITH_EDITOR guards)
  • destructible meshes for chimney caps, added logs to Fireplace DM
  • Added logs to art deco fireplace
  • Enabled weather events in new Prometheus biomes
  • Added Art deco decoration kit assets
  • Field Guide display multiple recipes when an item has more than one way to craft
  • Field Guide fix the build
  • Decal pass and Manual caves in Red and Purple Quad, Ashlands, Prometheus
  • Field Guide localized sort of displayed search results
  • Field Guide add a widget switcher to prevent view rebuild when changing from search to category list
  • Removed Cave Worms, Added to Cave Network and Set dressed Area, Ice Sheet Yellow Quad on Prometheus
  • Manual Cave Pass and Decal Pass, Ashlands, Prometheus
  • Field Guide add a 'catch all' category for any itemables not in another category
  • Adding small wood broken event and to data table
  • Adding small wood deployable item audio and applying to items
  • Field Guide add search option for items
  • Creating additional destruction sounds. Adding audio and event and data table. Dense metal
  • Added One extra Cave Deep ore Deposit to all Styx and Oly Prefab Caves
  • Updated Art Deco Chandelier to correctly be a light
  • Added One extra Cave Deep ore Deposit to all Styx and Oly Prefab Caves
  • Fixed recipe list search bar not allowing clicking across the entire bar
  • Added recipes for Art Deco Decorations set
  • Fixed fire and smoke effect on Art Deco Fireplace
  • Initial setup for decoration classifications (pending icons)
  • Field Guide add an overview page for the items view
  • Cliff Pass on open areas in the Ashlands and Decal Pass, Prometheus
  • Added Cave Worm Spawns to New Cave Network & Placed Deep Ore / Super Cooled Ice, Ice Sheet Yellow Quad on Prometheus
  • Adding correct data tabel entry to all gold items in itemstatic
  • Adjusting destruction sound for gold decorations. Adding cooldowns
  • Field Guide create a custom index and page view for armor
  • Field Guide show 'no icon' for no icon, conditionally hide some fields
  • Fixed several asset startup warnings
  • SK, physicsAsset, material, textures added for T3 Platinum shovel (SK_ITM_Shovel_T3)
  • Field Guide Tidy up overlap on index screen
  • SK, physicsAsset, material, textures added for T4 Titanium shovel (SK_ITM_Shovel_T4)
  • Cleaned up startup warning for some assets
  • Adding Basic Setup for Beehives using new deployable logic
  • Adding Queen Bee, Beehive, Beehive Expansions, honey, honeycomb, beeswax and other related items, basic setup
  • Set Dressing New Cave Network with Stalagmite, Ice Sheet Yellow Quad on Prometheus
  • Decal pass and Landscape Sculpting, Ashlands, Prometheus

[/expand]

Hypatia Part II | Olympus Operations and respawning Exotics

Hypatia Part II is here.

You can now play 21 Operations that have been transitioned over from Missions in your Olympus Open Worlds. These Operations have been hand-selected with a range of challenges to choose from.

We’ve also added Exotic respawning in Open World, with the new Meteor Shower event occurring every 3 hours and spawning new nodes, veins, voxels and exotic plants.

Jump in and have a read.

Notable Improvements
  • Open World Selection Screen now shows Operations for Olympus and exotics for all 3 maps
  • Fixing Desert Mammoth Trophy not being the Desert Mammoth Trophy when placed
  • Fixed Tusker Trophy deploying as Komodo Trophy
  • Fixed Viscid only granting Wolf kill experience by accident
  • Encroachment: Extermination - Fixed clients seeing incorrect kill requirements for The Great River, showing the objective as complete when it wasn’t
  • Meridian: Extraction - Added supply drop to deposit ingredients into rather than the same box to fix a bug where the box would clean up too fast. Changed the mission text to match
  • Improvements and fixes for Strange Harvest: Research and Strange Harvest: Bio Research




This Week: Olympus Operations


Hypatia Part II is here, and as promised, it features Olympus Operations.

21 missions have been added as playable Operations in your Open World prospects on our original map, Olympus. These 21 missions have been hand-selected as missions that best suit the Operations model and Open World play. They provide unique challenges that suit a more established prospect where you often start with higher-tier gear.

We also recently reorganized the Olympus Missions, allowing for a smoother progression through Operations and allowing you to do more Missions without having to repeat every ‘scan’ Mission. When you’ve completed all the Operations, this will also fully unlock all of the Olympus Missions as individual prospects to play the traditional way.



This Week: Exotic Respawning & Meteor Showers


Hypatia Part II also brings the long-awaited Exotic Respawning and Open World Exotics to Icarus.

This means Exotics can now be extracted from your Open World prospects through exotic deposits, earned along side enzymes in Horde Mode, or farmed from plants on Prometheus. Next week, we’ll also add Exotic Voxels to mine.

Exotics now respawn in Open World games through the new Meteor Shower event.

Every 3 hours there will be a map-wide Meteor Shower that will only trigger if you have fully extracted an exotic deposit during that time period. This causes up to three new exotic veins to spawn across the map. On Open Worlds currently only three exotic veins can be 'active' at any one time.

This also resets your Radar scans, allowing you to rescan and find new veins in their new locations.

Regardless of whether the Meteor Shower happens or not, every three hours Exotic Plants on Prometheus prospects have a chance to spawn, and Geysers have their completion numbers reset, allowing you to gather exotics again.



Coming Soon: Batteries


Our Batteries project is making progress, and we wanted to give you an update on where this is at.

Our recent work includes adjusting outward network flows locally to allow for brownouts and modifiers to be applied when the power output isn’t high enough. We have also allowed for variable flow rates and crafting to still occur even when you’re lacking adequate power supply, but at a reduced rate of speed.

We are still in the testing phase of all of these adjustments, so they may change considerably from the current forms. To make sure this is effective and player-friendly, we’re doing a QoL pass at the same time as we play with these features.

We’re also looking to include a system which allows players to debug networks in-game, either using tools in-world or having a unique UI.



Each Week: Performance


While it may not be mentioned in our weekly blog each week, performance is an ongoing part of our work, and those who dive into the detailed changelog below will notice some of the improvements we’re making week-on-week.

As part of the performance work, we have been looking at a way to reduce the impact of loading across the map which can cause stutters. This is mainly focusing on adjusting the way caves are spawned in, and we’ve had some early positive results, but this is still very much in the early stages of testing.

We have also been looking into what impact we can have in reducing the pack sizes of the game and therefore the download size. As some of you have mentioned before, the process of downloading and patching the updates can be lengthy, due to the stark differences in how Unreal Engine packages build and how Steam wants to unpack them. What we’re hoping is this work will improve the download speed, which will at least impact this positively. This will go through rigorous testing before being released, but if all goes well this should be out in the future.



Next Week: New Deep Ore Vein Types


Next week we’ll be adding new Deep Ore Veins to all maps, increasing the possible resources that can be collected from them and the number of Deep Ore Veins available. In the past, this was limited to lower-tier resources the majority of the time. Next week we’ll be releasing the full list of all the new resources that can be gathered.

As part of this patch, we’ll be adjusting the way resources are set up which may cause the respawning of some voxels, trees and plants in various areas of the map. If there are any issues, make sure to report them here in feature upvote.



If you like what we’re doing with Icarus, and want to support our continued development, consider purchasing one of our DLCs for a few dollars, it would mean a lot to us.

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

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/34141/Icarus_Outposts_Bundle/

Changelog v2.1.4.117586


New Content
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  • Hypatia Merge
  • Enabling Operations on Open World & Allowing Exotic Respawning on Open World
  • When exotic deposit resources are exhausted they will no longer show up on any future radar scans

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Fixed
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  • Strange Harvest: Bio Research - Changed final pod to a transport pod. Removed double up of icarus map icons on satelite
  • Open World Selection Screen now shows operations for olympus and exotics for all 3 maps
  • Adding pickup weapon sound for guns and crossbows
  • Strange Harvest: Reserach - Decreased the search area radius' to more accurately represent the travel quest. Removed a description override within the first drop pod quest so it displays the proper mission text
  • Adding bow pick up audio and balancing against other pick up sounds. Removed spacializer. Saved pickup spacializer as a preset and added to all pickups so they are consistent. Data table entry
  • Change food modifiers from 'stack, max 1' to 'replace' and make datatable validation more explicit
  • Adding pickaxe / axe pickup sound
  • Fixed Corn (uncooked) not giving the raw food modifier
  • Meridian: Extraction - Added supply drop to deposit ingredients into rather than the same box to fix a bug where the box would clean up too fast and changed the mission text to match
  • Shortening pickup axe audio event to have less shing
  • Small adjustment to axe pickup sound. Slightly reduced the fade to allow a tiny bit more tail
  • Updated Trace and Entangle credits section
  • Linked up player talent Unlock text to translatable text entry
  • Added translatable text entries for sneak attack, bestiary open option and drill UI
  • Tweaked the 1ST Cha shoulder in the gun aim animation to fix being able to see through the shoulder in 1st person while aiming
  • Adding knife pickup audio event and data table entry
  • Meridian: Extraction - Fixed a bug where on reload the drop pod would respawn
  • Fixed Viscid granted Wolf kill experience
  • Doing a pass on shortening all excessively long audio events (over 50 seconds). Sometimes splitting into multiple, sometimes just shortening
  • Fixing Desert Mammoth Trophy not being the Desert Mammoth Trophy when placed
  • Fixed Tusker Trophy deploying as Komodo Trophy
  • Increase range when checking if a depleted deposit is occupied by an extractor, before clean up
  • Prevent late joining clients on multiplayer from seeing UI for past exotic replenish events
  • ENCROACHMENT: Fixed a bug causing clients to see an incorrect count for the The Great River kill objective, indicating that that step was complete when it is not
  • Unlock Beachhead by default, allowing players to jump straight into Olympus Operations
  • Enabled exotic rewards on open world from Vapor Condenser event
  • Removed lock on exotic voxel spawning, and related flag on DEEP VEIN
  • Removed obsolite unlock marker on MERIDIAN and PAYDAY
  • Doubled Exotic Voxel spawn rate, as it was still not frequent enough for players to find
  • Fixed Arctic Scoprion trophy incorrectly deploying as Scorpion trophy
  • Do not clear radar scans on replenish event if no deposits have been depleted
  • ENCROACHMENT: Fixed a bug causing clients to see an incorrect count for the The Great River kill objective, indicating that that step was complete when it is not.

[/expand]

Future Content
[expand]
  • Fixing Light emitter on NS_Meteor_Impact, alpha values dipped below zero causing issues when using epic settings
  • Adding scorpion crossbow data table entry
  • Decal Pass, Red and Purple Quads, Ashlands, Prometheus
  • Set Dressing New Cave Network, Ice Sheet Yellow Quad on Prometheus
  • Adding unique scorpion crossbow audio and data table entries
  • Submitting new/modified Spider Nest mesh and textures
  • Adding screenshake to meteor impact
  • Temporarily fixed build validation error by reverting NPC slow rotation update
  • Implementing Meteor shockwave and distortion on impact system
  • Fixed issue where AI-controlled mount movement speed was being overridden on tick.
  • Added ability for mounts to rotate smoothly towards target direction
  • Lots of adjustments and improvements to the meteor impact so it feels slightly less abrupt at very long distances. Balanced the close ear ring and added impact snapshot etc
  • Added new icon for mount wander movement mode
  • Added new voxel types for new areas of Prometheus
  • Re Saving Dev Test 002 prospect list details to default
  • Final adjustments to meteor event. Very small reduction to some low end to reduce low end build up
  • Removed navigation data from LC_Cliff_14_ground (ground cover foliage cliff for phase 3) to reduce navmesh issues
  • Adding scorpion crossbow fire audio, adjustments to other CB parts levels etc. Small adjustments to meteor impact ducking
  • Changed crevasse nav modifier volume startup to try to prevent the modifiers body setup from evading the garbage collector
  • Added 7 assets for the Art Deco Furniture set, all chairs and tables
  • Adding sandworm tendon audio. Also added to meat and other items that feel similar for pick up sounds
  • Decal Pass and Landscape Sculpting Pass in the Ashlands, Prometheus
  • Set Dressing New Cave Network with Stalagmite, Ice Sheet Yellow Quad on Prometheus
  • Nesting events within meteor impact with limitations to playback to prevent excessive amounts of boombastics
  • Added text for biolab weapon components and weapons
  • Small EQ adjustment to meat / tendon pickup audio
  • Additional tweaking of Prometheus section 2 voxel reward weighting, pending final voxel placement
  • When meteor showers occur, do not clean up exhausted meta deposits that still have an extractor attached
  • Scorpion Rifle - added meshes for all components (WEP/GUN_ScorpionRifle)
  • Submitting in progress developer assets
  • Added art assets for art deco fireplace
  • Added new Biolab attachments
  • Cliff Decal pass on cliffs in the ground and Cliff pass, Ashlands, Prometheus
  • Set Dressing New Cave Network with Stalagmite, Ice Sheet Yellow Quad on Prometheus
  • Decal pass and Manual caves in Red and Purple Quad, Ashlands, Prometheus
  • Added Item.Meta tag on biolab attachments so they will correctly return to the station when returned
  • Set Dressing New Cave Network with Stalagmite, Ice Sheet Yellow Quad on Prometheus
  • Added new Biolab Inhalers
  • Adding in destruction states for bats nests, both cave and arctic versions

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