Icarus News

In yesterday's update we introduced a highly-anticipated outpost mission including the entirety of the Olympus map. Unfortunately this was gated behind the 'Nightfall' mission incorrectly, and players were still unable to access it even after completing the pre-requisite mission.



We do apologize for doing the hotfix, as we know it is disruptive with how the downloads work and Steam has to verify the entire game. This can take a long time, depending on your storage hardware. Unfortunately we really do need to get this change out, as it restricts access to the main feature of this week's update.




As many players have already completed the 'Nightfall' mission, 'fixing' the problem would require us to manually update their database records to reflect the correct value. After the server outages experienced last night, we've opted to instead avoid these changes by removing the mission completion requirement entirely- making the 'Daybreak' outpost mission available to everyone.




In the ~15 or so hours since yesterday's update, we've experienced several outages lasting from 1-2 hours each. We've experienced similar outages in the past, and as part of a long-term effort to mitigate these issues have been working towards a solution that places less dependency on our online infrastructure and puts more control in the hands of players through offerings like a dedicated server package. While this work has already been underway for some time, the outages tonight will force us to look at how we can expedite this even further - possibly at the expense of other development work. These discussions will certainly be top of the agenda for Monday morning.

In the meantime, in the active connections graph below you'll see we've performed a couple of reinstalls of one part of our back-end infrastructure. We've reduced the number of nodes with each successive attempt, with an aim to reduce the overall memory footprint. As Dean mentioned in his 4AM announcement, this treats the symptoms but is not a permanent solution. We're hopeful this will keep the system available while we work through our expedited replacement plans already underway.



Finally, I'd like to apologize to all the players who were affected by these outages, and extend a massive thanks to Dean, Ben, Shin and the other engineers who worked through the night to either work directly on the issue or to keep people on Discord and the Steam forums informed on their progress.

This week we start our process of refreshing Outposts, starting with adding new functionality and personalization along with the entire Olympus map now being playable as a huge 64sqkm Outpost.

Configurability in Outposts includes adjusting the difficulty, allowing you to customize your experience to suit your playstyle. With Olympus available as a full persistent map, you’ll have an abundance of resources at your disposal also. We’re excited to see how you take this new opportunity and create magic with it.



Outposts were not something we originally thought of providing, but early on based on community feedback during the beta, great ideas developed and we wanted to pursue them. However, it has been hard to find the time for that as there were foundational issues with the game that we wanted to change first. It is exciting for us to take our first look at what we can do with this area of the game, and are even more excited by what we can build on later.

Like with our performance and optimization patch a few weeks back, this is not the last for Outpost ideas. While outposts are the this update's focus, you will note in the changelog that our usual fixes and optimizations are flowing in each week as well.



You can now explore Olympus without any restrictions, and return at your leisure to create your own hub on the surface of Icarus. The entire 64sqkm Olympus map will be a persistent, playable Outpost available to all players with this update.

Previously, this wasn’t possible due to the amount of data being saved and how this impacted performance. Recent updates and improvements to replication and performance have now allowed us to execute this confidently, but it’s worth noting that performance will still be impacted at the extremes of data generated. In simple terms, building thousands of buildings or extensions to your base will eventually degrade performance, but we’re confident that in the current state of the game this extremity is much more realistic and players will be able to create and build to their hearts' content.

If you wish to wipe the slate clean and start again, Olympus Outposts can be deleted the same way the smaller versions are, as these are saved to your PC rather than to the cloud.





We have wanted to provide more value for those who purchase the supporters edition for some time, however, we cannot do this at the expense of the larger community. We understand that is frustrating, but every development moment we have continues to be prioritized towards changes that benefit everyone. We do have some exciting ideas to help reward those supporting us with the supporters edition, but locking this kind of content behind that is not the way.

[h3]It is vital that we nurture the community as a whole well before we risk dividing it with content[/h3]

So, we will over time look at ways to increase the value of the supporters edition. In the meantime, we do hope those who have it understand that we must prioritize content for everyone first, even if it hurts us in revenue.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1648531/Icarus_Supporters_Edition/



Outposts will now also have the option to be customized to suit player's personal preferences. These ‘difficulties’ are similar to those on prospect missions and will allow you to customize the weather severity and aggressive wildlife spawns. Harder difficulty settings will provide more volatile weather conditions and more numerous, powerful foe to contend with. There is still a safer, easier option for players who prefer to focus on other systems without contending with other challenges.

The ‘Extreme’ option will also disable visual maps and locators, similar to how it behaves in prospects.

While exotics won’t be mineable in Outposts, all other voxels and interactive features will be. You can explore to your heart's content, craft all deployables and structures and venture into all biomes on Olympus to seek ingredients for whatever you need. While missions will not be available, you can still complete these on standard prospects to earn the valuable currency you’re after. We’re excited to see how you personalize your Outposts, and what these new possibilities will spark in your creativity.

Note: All Outposts show the same options, regardless of the biome specifics. For example the Arctic Biome will show an increase in Lion Spawn Percentage at higher difficulties, but this will not be applied due to the biome’s characteristics. There aren't any Lions in the Arctic.

We have unlocked the Olympus Outpost for all players in the Outposts screen.

There is an optional mission to complete too. The UDA has a final set of research for prospectors to complete before deeming Olympus suitable for permanent inhabitance. Your briefing is as follows:

NIGHTFALL: Survey

// OPERATOR: UDA
// BIOME: All
// BACKGROUND: Operator is expanding their research operations to encompass a greater area for development.
// MISSION: Complete a survey of the area and gather data on remaining apex predators to determine the viability of permanent bases in this region.
// TERMS: Flat fee. All resources and construction materials are the responsibility of the Contractor.

• We’ve made some major improvements this week which will have a large influence on the in-game experience which we wanted to note.
  
• We’ve completed a major texture optimization pass. This should result in improved performance (especially if GPU was previously memory limited) and smaller game package size. There will be more to come in our next update.
  
• The Thrown Spears/Knives Highlighting talent was previously breaking if looking at the object and then looking away. It now remains highlighted in that case, correctly.
  
• Several missions were doing an invalid check of prospect difficulty, so design intent wasn’t being fully realized. These missions should now scale, as designed, with difficulty.
  
• We’ve made some changes to the system which deals with 'player teleporting' if falling through the ground which should hopefully result in a better experience.
  

Next week we will be removing the “Return From Prospects” Button as it was only ever supposed to be a Beta feature and has prevented us from really leaning into the character attachments and loss we originally envisioned for Icarus.

Important things to know:

• The ‘Return From Prospect Button’ will be removed
  
• Another Button “Abandon Prospect” will be added
  
• When this new button is clicked, if the prospect has insurance, the character will be safely returned to the station with the loadout they took with them gone. If the prospect does not have insurance the character will be abandoned along with all their gear. You will now longer be able to use this character and will have to delete them to remove them from your roster.
  

You will notice in the credits, an addition in memoriam of a colleague. A talented member of our team, Alex Gomersall, passed away a couple of weeks ago. Alex was a brilliant talent and even better friend, and his influence on Icarus and our team can not be understated. We hope you will get to enjoy his amazing work in-game for many years to come, in his memory.

Alex contributed a great deal to how incredible the game looks, his passionate eye for bringing the best in our materials and shaders really helped shape our terrains. Working with Alex on the Arctic snow was a real highlight, as he was as passionate as I was about really giving our arctic biomes the feeling of majesty that a cold biome brings. Having worked with Alex, we understand what a loss he is for us all and our thoughts are with the family and friends he leaves behind.

• Adding new Difficulty Settings to Outposts so players can choose settings for weather and animal spawns
  
• Adding Olympus-wide Outpost to the Outpost Screen
  
• Can now modify key bindings from the title screen
  
• Thrown spears/knives/etc are highlighted in world talents now correctly prevent the highlight being cleared when looking at the item and then looking away
  
• Fixed various texture settings for consistency and compatibility with tooling
  
• Optimized or deleted unused expensive (4k) texture assets.
  
• Fix Stone Arrow having ‘None’ defined for Additional Stats which caused Komodo Bite modifier to appear erroneously in item tooltip. Add DT Validation to pick up on this in future
  
• Fixed some blueprints using the wrong GetDifficulty method which was preventing correct difficulty scaling
  
• Added a fix in to teleport players that fall through the map back to their last grounded location. Improved teleport fall-back case to pick nearest dropship/respawn pod spawn location instead of the assigned player dropship
  
• Adding final sound for the egg nests. Adding removal of items from egg nest ‘gooey slosh sound’
  
• Adding in the sound of ‘removing mission item from downed supply crate’ for delivery mission Styx
  
• Implemented new icon for the Trained Hunter talent.
  
• Added Wooden piranha statue to the project.
  
• Added stone piranha statue to the project.
  
• Added DCO_Candle_Holders_Wood_Carved
  
• Added AMM_Pistol
  
• Fixed Icebox inventory tag to allow all food, rather than only spoiled food.
  
• Added difficulty setups for Outposts
  
• Fix spelling of Scorpion in Stats description
  
• Assigned SpawnRate types for Crocodile, Komodo
  
• Separate ‘Hard Creature Stats’ from ‘Hard Creature Spawn Rates’ for better control
  
• Added bounds mask in Generic folder
  
• Small adjustment to gloopy egg sound based on mission play. Also adjusted positive affirmation delays for the mission
  
• Small adjustment to the remove the flesh tear sound from egg sack removal
  
• Improve AssetInfo texture checking methods.
  
• Fix filenames on Pine02 burnt textures
  
• Fix filenames on various textures
  
• Making carry radar sound more subtle. Slightly less body to the sound and less invasive when running with a radar for a long distance
  
• Updated the LOD Groups and LODs on certain Static Meshes
  
• Updated physical material for the stone elephant statue.
  
• Updated wooden deer statue textures.
  
• Updated physical material on stone deer statue.
  
• DCO_StatueBuffalo_Wood mesh, material and textures
  
• Updated the DM_WallShelf_Wood assets as the texture update was look for an auto generated texture in Engine
  
• Updating DMs an Mats for DCO_Carved wood Bookshelf and Desk Lamp
  
• LOD adjustments for Desk Lamp and Bookshelf
  
• Scorpion Boss tweaks to VFX biome switch, added extra biome scripts for Niagara systems
  
• Fixed issue with repair hammer not playing hit sound on the Wood Hedgehog, due to missing physical material
  
• Added new copies of existing Prospect Image textures to new folder with themed naming schemes for grouping
  
• Added new Prospect Images textures
  
• Changes to bespoke cave entrances in Blue and Green quad Styx.
  
• Updated mission step in Husk: Extermination mission to say Textiles Bench instead of Armor Bench
  
• Removed ore overlap in large G3 cave Blended cliff with landscape in D5 on Red Quad, Styx
  
• Added Chamois transition, carcass, fur and textures
  
• Added descriptions to the workshop vaccine modifiers.
  
• Initial work overhauling audio quad delay system (WIP)
  
• Moves quad delay to a dedicated PlayerReflectionAudioComponent
  
• Can be turned on for dev testing by ticking a box in BP_PlayerEnvironmentalAudioComponent which will instantiate the new component and bypass the old system
  
• Existing outposts now show the right difficulty level - or show Easy if they were made before outpost difficulty was added
  
• Added Reward Display under Talent_Prospect.
  
• Point Prospects to new images and minor DT fixes
  
• Ordered FactionMissions DT to match ProspectList DT for easier maintenance/comparisons
  
• Deleted Hard/Hardcore prospects no longer used since Difficulty refactor
  
• Changed system to not validate image resolution if no image is specified
  
• The Olympus wide outpost now points to the correct terrain and players can now launch the outpost successfully
  
• Adjusted Reward Display color and size
  
• Updated the LOD groups and LODs on certain Static Meshes
  
• Fixed Compile error on UMG_ProspectRewardDisplay
  
• Updated UMG_CreditsPage
  
• Fixed WorldStatsSubsystem trying to add to the virtual Buffalo and Boar spawn rate stats instead of base stats. This fixes issue where BoarSpawnRate and BuffaloSpawnRate stats weren't being applied correctly
  
• Added stats to control spawn rates of crocodiles, komodos, and zebra
  
• Fixed sorting of ProspectList and FactionMissions DTs
  
• Fixed missing meta data info in missions
  
• Removed hard references to images in UMGs
  
• Pointed FactionMissions to new image files
  
• Deleted old image files
  
• Fixed issue where the UI and Selected Outpost Difficulty could be out of sync and be displaying the incorrect difficulty and stats
  
• Checked that teleports players who fall out of the map now only considers players falling if their Z velocity is negative, instead of solely relying on a Falling MovementMode
  
• Fixed a few incorrect subtitles and typos on various mission voiceovers
  
• Adding base mission flow for Olympus Outpost unlock mission and relevant quest markers in D_QuestQueries data table, added in mission item BPs and Central Scanner Device BP which at the moment is a reskinned crash ship to retain base logic
  
• Added Quest items, Crystal and Battery Items static, meshable and itemable setups for use in Olympus Outpost unlock mission
  
• Added Talent for new Mission, Adding Character Flags for new Mission to unlock the Olympus wide outpost, Adding New UI to Outpost Selection, to show locked status
  
• Added some collision volumes beneath ground in underwater caves to ensure the new out-of-bounds teleporting works as expected in those areas of the map
  
• Added New UI of New Omni_Olympus Mission
  
• Added Inventory tag queries and slot setup
  
• Riverbanks/Cliff Underwater Assets Pass on Outpost 006, Forest Outpost 3
  
• Landscape painting Decal placement on Outpost 006, Forest Outpost 3
  
• Landscape Sculpting, Cliff Placement And Custom Cave Work, Outpost 008
  
• Added Scorpion pack static mesh
  
• Decal pass, foliage painting and lake/river edge spline points polish, Desert Outpost 007
  
• Added foliage, PFS_Resources and hand painted resources, polished decals and cliff blending, in Desert Outpost, 007
  
• Removed SM_ROCK_DC_LRG_10 from Outpost 007
  
• Foliage and resources pass, Nav Modifier Volumes placed in the persistent level and polished decals around cliffs, Desert Outpost 007
  
• Added Dropship spawning points, Ore deposits, polished landscape blending with cliffs and decals, painted voxels and added details to foliage, Desert Outpost 007
  
• Checked all impassable collisions and fixed landscape blending with canyons, decal polish pass, and built underground cave, Desert Outpost 007
  
• Delete unused Faction Expedition Blocker mesh
  
• Fix dresser DM material warning
  

Survival game Icarus recently released Styx, a new DLC pack free to players. It contains a hefty new chunk of map measuring 8x8km, effectively doubling the size of the survival game's playable area, and adding new creatures to battle and new missions to complete...
Read more.

Week Twenty-Seven introduces the newest World Boss to Icarus, the giant Scorpion. This new challenge will prove dangerous and is no longer limited to the desert biome - but if you can take it down your reward may be the distinctive Scorpion Armor with its strong stats and unique damage-dealing perks.

Jump into our new mission HUSK: Extermination to take down two of these apex predators and gather the valuable Carapace you need to craft your new armor sets. Happy hunting, Prospectors.





The Scorpion World Boss is the second world boss to roam Icarus, and will provide a frightening challenge when encountered in the wild. Larger, stronger and with a strengthened hide and a fatal stinger, engaging with this new threat is not advised, and any attempt should be executed with extreme caution.

The World Boss variant of the Scorpion is not restricted to the desert biome like its smaller counterparts and can be found in more foreign territory, requiring you to be on alert at all times.

Originally posted by author

This week we're unleashing the Scorpion world boss onto Styx missions, along with a mission to hunt a couple of them to discover the Scorpion Armor recipes! The armor is a great combat armor that even has a chance for your assailants to hurt themselves when attacking you, but take care, as the armor set might also draw some unwanted attention! - Shawn, Game Designer

The reward for slaying this foe is the chance to craft the Scorpion Armor set.

Scorpion Armor comes with bonuses to Projectile and Physical Damage Resistance plus some unique perks. Any foe who engages in hand-to-hand combat will take damage from its sharp exterior, although the design is less camouflaged against the landscape so may make you a target for nearby predators.

To craft the Armor you need the unique ‘Carapace’ materials which can only be gathered by engaging with the larger variant of the arachnid and break away from its hide as you deal damage.

A full set of armor is available to craft with this week’s update.





To introduce the new Scorpion World Boss to Icarus, you have been tasked with a mission to eliminate a pair of the apex predators from the Styx territories. Your briefing is as follows:

HUSK: Extermination

// OPERATOR: Lagos Unit

//BIOME: All

// BACKGROUND: Icarus's native scorpion is an enduring threat to operations in all regions. However, it may have value as a resource for new recipes in development.

// MISSION: Track the creature to its origin, and destroy it. Contribute to research on its materials before returning to orbit.

// TERMS: Risk assessment for this contract is judged as extreme. Experienced Contractors only.



Version: 1.2.2.97363

• Added Scorpion World Boss.
  
• Added Scorpion World Boss Armor.
  
• Adding new Item Prototype Creature Tracker
  
• Adding new Aura for Providing a modifier that reveals the boss creatures on the map
  
• Adding Stats for % Chance to Return Melee Physical Damage
  
• Adding Stat for % of Melee Physical Damaged Returned
  
• Adding new Stats to Scorpion Armor
  
• Adding new Damage type Returned
  
• Updates to water immersion parameter. Slowed created LCL version and adjusted seek speed to be slightly slower. Added to other layers of croc since its in the water a lot.
  
• Improved the machete skinning effectiveness and allowed it to reap plants.
  
• Sand mesh blended into ground in N13, Floating Rock moved in K6 Bug fixes on Green/Yellow Quad, Styx
  
• Removed the leaf layer on the wood stack asset.
  
• Edited desert cliff sticking out of impassable, Red Quad, Styx
  
• Reduced crafted knives durability and tweaked talents to help mitigate this.
  
• Tweaked talent tree positions for better readability and aesthetics.
  
• Ammo count displayed on UI is now cached, improving performance
  
• Update AssetInfo tool to scan complex-collision-as-simple meshes to verify their setups for performance implications.
  
• Update several meshes which had less than ideal setups to improve performance and quality. Many meshes needed additional 1 or 2 LODs for visual and collision reasons.
  
• Player Character names have been added to mission objectives in RENDEZVOUS: Delivery
  
• Adding navigation blocker to the delivery container so that the Mammoth Boss will no longer get stuck on RENDEZVOUS: Delivery
  
• Fixed issue where pickup sounds wouldn’t play when players picked up a creature or fish corpse.
  
• Fixed missing textures on Destructible Meshes for Horizontal and Diagonal Stone Beams.
  
• Fixed animal bone Niagara particle not playing when fully harvesting carcass skeleton.
  
• Removed spark and glow on hit particle from impacts with bone type physical surface
  
• Player gravestones now have a static overflow bag placed in the exact position they died. This gives anyone else a secondary interact/revive location in the case of a ragdolled body clipping through the world or becoming unreachable
  
• Fixed minor bug in talent tree allowing you to unlock certain talents without the visual requirements.
  
• Updated descriptions on Steel Bloom, Anvil Bench and Fireplace to better communicate Steel smelting requirements.
  
• Fixed a case where the craft/queue button on backpack crafting screen would not become enabled after adjusting amount being crafted to a valid amount
  
• Several cave fixes on Olympus - Cave entrance missing in yellow quad O12. Improved the cave entrance in red quad F1/F2. Removed white bush from yellow quad. Removed floating voxel in cave in yellow quad.
  
• Fixed bug on client where arrows attached to an NPC that just died could become re-attached strangely or float in the air.
  
• Fixing issue where the aura modules where not correctly adding the buffs to nearby players
  
• Fixed not being able to scroll between focused hotbar slots on inventory and crafting screens
  
• Fixed issue where SandWorm wouldnt spit at target if there was an NPC within melee range. Possibly fixed issue where SandWorm would go dormant while player was nearby
  
• Beacons can now be deployed using the right click context menu.
  
• Fixed bolt action rifle using wrong shoot animations for 3RD person
  
• The post-AI-death life span of actors spawned via BP_ManualAISpawnerBasic is now 15s instead of 3s. This fixes issue where caveworms could be destroyed before they finish their death animations
  
• Fixed animation bug where pistol hammer would return to fired postion after reloading
  
• Fixed cases where ore drills would not restart correctly after loading game or could enter states where they could not be re-activated. NOTE: Bio-drills will turn off automatically the first time you load game after this patch, on subsequent loads they should preserve their running state.
  
• Fixed case where electric drills could continue to run without power.
  
• Fixed drills not mining at correct speed for the deposit they are placed on after loading game.
  
• Removed dynamic snow from ore materials used in VFX Fixed snow particle issues on voxels
  
• Fixed Kea spawning inside of buildings
  
• Fixed regression with latest update to client/server projectile attachment replication breaking ability to auto-pickup attached arrows when picking up a carcass. Also fixes arrows not being automatically added to loot inventory when skinning carcass
  
• Spoiled Plants and Spoiled Meat can now be placed in the Icebox and Fridge, this means if food spoils while in the fridge or icebox the spoiled meat / plants item created is not lost.
  
• Added a fullstop to the Steel Pickaxe description.
  
• Adding cave worm egg nest audio. Gloopy sounds and close up heart beat. Added egg opening audio and creature die when destroyed. Small adjustments to the sack opening sound for the egg nest. Also added zebra carcass to the correct data table entry for audio so it plays the pick up sound.
  
• Dont use Meta axe icon as default icon and genercize mission unlock text for Workshop item nodes
  
• Disabled the PawnSwarm attached to BPQ_STYX_C_Expedition_Drill_Cave_2, this fixes the issue where caveworms were spawning underneath the map when drilling at the second drill spot (inside the cave). Possible fix for audio cue triggering too early during this mission step also
  
• Adding small delay to dialogue table for positive and negative one shot lines so that in missions they dont happen the instant the player achieves the goal. Particularly noticeable in Gossamer research
  
• Adding audio for the Kea stealing food off the campfire. Also added Kea idle silly move flap side to side audio
  
• Impassable mountains not actually changed, but setups slightly modified (lod-as-collision specified value) to suit the tooling as some data cannot be accessed (override collision geo)
  
• Implement new model and updated flavor text for Wood Hedgehog. Updated hitbox for Scorpion Hedgehog to more reliably hit creatures.
  
• Update meshes for Copper, Gold, Aluminium, Titanium and Steel ingots
  
• Update mesh for Ice and fix physical material being set to wood.
  
• Fix Glass item mesh having 4 LODs when LOD0 is 200 triangles. Fix materials having no physical materials assigned
  
• Optimize Wildboar textures down to 2k.
  
• Implementing Damage Returned Stats
  
• SandWorm no longer drops scales for instances of fire and poison damage, damage must have originated from physical attack (projectile or melee)
  
• Adding extra information to tooltips which describe modifiers and afflictions
  
• Quick Pass on Item Stats UI Element to include better buff / debuff visualisation so players can have a better understanding of whats buffs / debuffs do
  
• Sand Worm and Scorpion Boss now give the player much more experience when killed (1000->5000)
  

Last week we dropped the biggest content update to Icarus yet with the Styx Map & Missions Pack DLC. This week’s update brings a large batch of bug fixes, performance improvements and gameplay balances.

We’re also unlocking the final two promised Styx missions and introducing the Larkwell Bow and arrow varieties to the Orbital Workshop for the hunters among you.

Originally posted by author

Performance and bugfixing has been a priority since we began the beta, but with a more solid foundation we now have the ability to make some of our weekly updates focused directly on improving both the stability of the game, and how it runs. This will be the first of what will be many updates focused on general performance and bugfixes. Note optimization takes time and requires a great deal of caution and testing; improvements come gradually over time.

Please ensure you check you are running the latest graphics card drivers!. We have worked directly with video card manufacturers and they have made changes to their graphics drivers directly to improve performance. It's vital you keep these up to date.
- Dean Hall, Gamerunner

This week we’ve unlocked the RENDEZVOUS: Delivery and BALLISTIC: Extermination missions to complete the sixteen mission pack that comes with the new Styx map. Your briefings are as follows:

RENDEZVOUS: Delivery

// OPERATOR: Uniao

// BIOME: Alpine Valley

// BACKGROUND: The operator requires a very delicate biosample from the surface.

// MISSION: Retrieve the required sample and ensure its safe return to orbit. Note that the sample will be highly sensitive to temperature.

// TERMS: Flat fee. No acknowledgement will be given for damaged or unusable samples.


BALLISTIC: Extermination

// OPERATOR: Sinotai

// BIOME: The Oasis

// BACKGROUND: Sinotai has been made aware of an increase in hostile wildlife within their granted research plot.

// MISSION: Dispatch any hostile wildlife in the region to guarantee the safety of the operator's team.

// TERMS: Flat fee. All safety and survival concerns are the responsibility of the Contractor.





This update adds several new items from Larkwell Martinez to the Orbital Workshop, including the long awaited High-Performance Compound Bow. Providing a deadly silent option for the elusive prospector, this bow comes with a range of arrow options, allowing you to personalize it even further.

• Ballistic Arrow - A small yet devastating explosive charge which detonates on impact. Handle with care.
  
• Tazer Arrow - Somewhat clunky to use due to its weight, the Tazer arrow will briefly slow creatures.
  
• Bleed Arrow - Equipped with serrated edging to maximize damage, this arrow will cause on-going damage after the first hit lands.
  
• Standard Arrow - Not your typical run-of-the-mill arrow head, this precision crafted arrow flies fast, true and hits like a train.
  

In addition to the new arrows we also performed a balance pass of the existing workshop bows giving them a much needed damage increase.

Bows have been highly requested for some time, so this release will quench that thirst while providing new strategies for tackling the toughest foe. Happy hunting, prospectors.





We are humbled by the amazing response we’ve had to Styx, and in this week's update we’ve included numerous numerous patches and fixes that focus on performance, player experience, memory optimization and balancing. These improve both the core Icarus game and the Styx missions even further.

Read a detailed breakdown in the Detailed Change Log below, but here are some highlights:

• HALCYON: Extermination Mission, tweaked the Cub spawn rate to scale with connected players and prospect difficulty, is now slightly easier as a single player and ramps up with more connected players, added entry for Polar Bear Boss in AI_Growth so we can control the scaling apart from the base Polar bear, added in scaling for Den mother spawn to ramp up level with connected players
  
• RICOCHET Expedition: Fixed the Difficulty scaling pointing to the wrong difficulty setup in the Prospect system, second stage of worms now correctly scales with selected difficulty and connected players
  
• Implement Jaguar, Snow Leopard and Kea skinning bench options
  
• Added scorpion to skinning bench.
  
• Reducing Performance cost of Dropships and buildings as they where performing expensive operations when they did not need to.
  
• Polished landscape at cave entrance, fixed river spline and fish volume, edited floating landscape and voxels around and added cliffs in desert area to correct collision issue, Yellow quad, Styx
  

• Added BALLISTIC: EXTERMINATION - Dispatch any hostile wildlife in the region to guarantee the safety of the operator's team.
  
• Added RENDEVOUS: DELIVERY - Retrieve the required sample and ensure its safe return to orbit. Note that the sample will be highly sensitive to temperature.
  
• Added Steel Arrows. Implementing Steel Arrow recipe.
  
• Add Larkwell Bow and Arrows to Meta Workshop
  

Balance/Passes/Revisions:

• Existing workshop bows have been provided with a damage increase (+75% Projectile Damage)
  
• Watermelon now gives twice as much water. Reduced oxygen consumption buff to reduced water consumption instead. Fixed description text and name.
  
• Updated meshes used for Archers, Gatherers and Survival backpacks. Update collision and LODs
  
• Metal Ingots visual redesign - polish pass on textures to give each ingot type a more distinctive look.
  
• Moved oxygen bladder to be closer to Oxite Dissolver in T2 talent tree.
  
• Update Iron and Steel Pickaxe descriptions to better communicate access to higher tiers of ore.
  
• Pass on the Crocodile and Komodo Physics assets to bring them closer to our other animal ragdolls.
  
• Health regen granted to anchored NPCs retreating can now be controlled via a stat. Can now choose whether or not an AI spawned via a BP_ManualAISpawnPoint receives regeneration while retreating, enabled by default, turned this off for some minor enemies in OLY_Omni_Research_2 mission. Anchored NPCs can now teleport directly to their anchor target if they've been blocked for too long, this behaviour is enabled by default for NPCs spawned via BP_ManualAISpawnPoints. Added ability for GOAPAction Blueprints to override the stats granted to the NPC during execution of Action. (Low level NPCs with anchor points are not longer guaranteed health regen when retreating. NPCs with anchor points can now teleport to target if stuck).
  
• Halved attack range of polar bear cubs (6m->3m).
  
• Increase base weapon damage multiplier on Shengong Bows from 1.0 to 1.75x and Larkwell bow from 1.0x to 2.25x to better compare against their base Recurve and Compound Bow equivalents.
  

Fixes:

• HALCYON: Extermination Mission, tweaked the Cub spawn rate to scale with connected players and prospect difficulty, is now slightly easier as a single player and ramps up with more connected players, added entry for Polar Bear Boss in AI_Growth so we can control the scaling apart from the base Polar bear, added in scaling for Den mother spawn to ramp up level with connected players.
  
• RICOCHET Expedition: Fixed the Difficulty scaling pointing to the wrong difficulty setup in the Prospect system, second stage of worms now correctly scales with selected difficulty and connected players.
  
• Fixed visual issue with workshop unlock requirements for Envirosuit variant ‘XIGO ‘Hark’ S5 Envirosuit’.
  
• Fixed scale (size) for 'Poison Paste' mesh as it was way too big.
  
• Fixed Concrete Furnace crafting time being too quick.
  
• Fixed tooltip in Superfoods to “raw food provides more sustenance”.
  
• Fixed double stacked voxels in transition cave on Styx H5.
  
• Fixed issue where any projectiles attached to cave worms on death were disappearing. They are now placed inside a loot bag. Any projectiles attached to cave worm on death are now removed and placed inside loot bag.
  
• Fixed AI carcass not filling with correct amount of attached projectiles when skinned.
  
• Fixed AI sometimes having attached arrows disappear when its ragdoll froze.
  
• Fixed issue where trying to customize the cosmetics of an offline character would leave the character headless. Fixed issue where any changes made to an offline characters cosmetics after creation wouldn't be saved.
  
• Fixed Thatch Roof buildables not being upgradeable due to not being defined in the BuildingVariationsStructure struct.
  
• IcarusPlayerCharacter now uses CapsuleComponent bounds instead of actor bounds when calculating nearby temperature effect. This fixes the bug where getting a critical shot with a ballistic (explosive) arrow would heat the player up from a distance.
  
• Fixed World Bosses not being visible on map for clients with relevant tracker module or trait. Updated description of stat granted by World Boss tracker module.
  
• Fixed issue where multiple nearby campfires/fireplaces would not grant the Warm and Cozy buff, blocking players from sleeping.
  
• Fixing crocodiles spawning in the incorrect location during Ballistic: Extermination due to an outdated spawn config.
  
• Fixed highlight/interaction prompts being visible while unconscious. Fixed animals unintentionally highlighting briefly when looking at them.
  
• Fixed Concrete Furnace interaction camera clipping through the roof.
  
• Fixed swimming up and down using jump and crouch keybindings.
  
• Fixed various instances of ApplyRadialDamageWithFalloff not using the correct node, and therefore not dealing AOE damage: this includes Sandworm, Sandworm WorldBoss, Smoke grenades, and others. CaveWorms and TeenageCaveWorms were left un-touched as to not affect the balance of missions using them.
  
• Fixed Printed Campfire Destructible mesh materials.
  
• Fixed spelling of Teeming in Styx description.
  
• Fixed issue where the player facing name for STYX was incorrectly names STYX PREVIEW.
  
• Fixed CaveWorms spawning very large for server during RICOCHET: Expedition mission on STYX.
  

Additions:

• Added Jaguar, Snow Leopard, Scorpion and Kea skinning bench options
  
• Adding in delay so Sol doesn't talk the very second bosses are defeated
  
• Applying water immersion eq to all creature death vocalizations so they filter when they fall under the water. Added preset for immersion
  
• Added Slow and Immobilize resistance stats to all aggressive creatures, based on their size/difficulty/strength. Ranges are from 10% to 50% and up to 100% for Boss creatures
  

Performance

• Fixing Performance of Deep Vein Ore Deposits as they are where doing many operations that they did not need to be doing
  
• Reducing Performance cost of Dropships and buildings as they where performing expensive operations when they did not need to.
  
• Optimizing Fish so they are no longer use expensive ticks or replication
  
• Memory dependency improvements which will help to reduce the amount of data required to be stored in memory while various elements of the game is running.
  
• Ammo count displayed on UI is now cached instead of being recalculated per frame, improving performance
  
• Improving Performance of Widgets that were Tracking and displaying Survival Variables (Oxygen, Water, Food, Temperature, Shelter) by preventing them from triggering updates in situations when they are not visible or not relevant to the current contextual situation.
  
• Removing various legacy debugging popups for UI elements which were triggering very expensive updates.
  
• Removing unnecessary replication of many elements (WaterBodies, HuntingClues, Rockets, RocketParts and Seats) and preventing smooth sync movement which was not needed
  

Map changes:

• Polished landscape at cave entrance, fixed river spline and fish volume, edited floating landscape and voxels around and added cliffs in desert area to correct collision issue, Yellow quad, Styx
  
• Bug Fixes, Waterfall fixes, Blending mesh into the landscape, Moving floating voxels Cave Fixes on Green Quad, Styx
  
• Fixed Riverbank Seams, Fixed Floating Cliffs and Fixed Ores Spawning Mid Air, Blue Quad, Styx
  
• General Cliff And Riverbank Fixes And A Decal Pass On The Riverbanks, Blue Quad, Styx
  
• Edited voxels and resources in transition cave, polished decals and foliage, Red quad, Styx
  
• Decal Pass On Riverbanks and Foliage Cleanup, Blue Quad, Styx