Icarus News

Week Sixty One focuses on correcting issues that arose from our Week Sixty update, something our community was vocal about and helped us to act on quickly.

Weather events and the system that operates them have been scaled back and improved. We haven’t scrapped the changes altogether, allowing us to keep the positive elements and strip out the ugly parts.

The irony isn’t lost on us that only hours after releasing this update, our home city of Auckland was hit by the worst storm in its history and promptly flooded.

Thankfully our team is OK and this week's update also includes a large performance optimization focusing on ‘ticking’ (described below). We expect this improvement to be more noticeable on lower-end PCs and large Open World bases.

Have a read, and stay dry team!





We’ve spent a week adjusting our new weather systems with all the feedback you have given us. This has been incredibly valuable, and we’re grateful for your constructive suggestions and candor.

• Weather now generates one event per weather block
  
• Weather ‘Blocks’ are now longer (often twice as long or more)
  
• Reduced frequency of weather events to a more reasonable and manageable amount
  
• Weather events are now picked again via the ‘weighted list’ system, rather than a rolling queue
  
• The Weather Forecast has been extended to three days
  
• Reduced and rebalanced the severity of weather in various prospects
  

These changes aim to provide a balance between reverting overwhelming elements of the new system, while still improving the new system with feedback so features such as the Weather Forecast and storm severity are kept.





We’re introducing some new performance optimizations that our team has been hard at work, looking at some of the areas we discussed in Week 59.

One word you’ll see a lot through these optimizations is ‘tick’ or ‘ticking’.

Ticks are an action that game objects perform, typically multiple times per second. Reducing the number of things done by each object every tick, reduces the strain on the CPU and therefore improves performance. Likewise, reducing the number of objects that tick also means better performance.

• Fixed the loading of certain assets during gameplay that could cause hitches. These were being loaded, used, and then released for garbage collection every few seconds
  
• Optimized the 'atmosphere controller' to rely more on cached data
  
• Optimized building pieces to cache several ‘commonly-accessed’ data table values
  
• Weather events now use cached building data, reducing hitches when the system is calculating which building pieces to damage in storms
  
• Building pieces no longer ‘tick'. Any ticking logic that they previously had (such as updating stability), is now controlled by their 'owning grid’ and has their calculations spread across multiple frames. When loading prospects with large amounts of building pieces these operations would previously sync up and cause noticeable hitches multiple times per second
  
• Nativized (converting Unreal Engine Blueprint code into C++ to improve efficiency) several building grid background tasks, which are now managed by an ‘owning system’ that evenly spreads these tasks between all building grids. This evens out performance with large numbers of different building grids present in the world
  
• Optimized the spline system used by electrical/water pipe systems
  
• Optimized deployable objects and benches. Deployables now have a custom ticking system that groups all of the deployables together to reduce CPU overhead
  
• Removed the tick process from almost all 'trait components' that were present on items in the game
  

An upcoming feature that some of you have seen in the detailed changelog is our resource respawning options. While this is not releasing this week, we are working on the behind-the-scenes technology for deployable items that will respawn various resources.

Firstly, we have upgraded and optimized the way we create and render caves. We are also re-running our entire world generation, which will ultimately add regeneration capabilities to voxels, trees and plants.

In the coming weeks, two new items are to be introduced that will allow players to respawn voxels and flora.

This has been a highly requested feature ever since the release of our Open World game mode. We’ve put a lot of thought into introducing this feature in a way that adds to the experience without detracting from performance. We can’t wait to share it soon.





Fixed

• MAELSTROM: Added respawning to explosive loot container
  
• Improve shadow settings validation for FLOD. Fix FT/BP assets to make sure their shadow settings match (disable shadows in AC assets as it is too harsh). Unified settings on lots of FTs back to default
  
• AVALANCHE: Increased size of travel location for preceeding through pass step. Updated highlight text for placement location of laser
  
• FORSAKEN: Fixed Damaged Gyroscope tagging to ensure this goes into the ship's gyroscope slot. Removed additional inventory slots, preventing items from being placed in inaccessible slots
  
• First pass at optimising weather audio system. Create a weather audio subsystem to manage weather controller events centrally and distribute updates to weather audio components much more efficiently
  
• Fix Flashlight and Biofuel Lamp being extinguished when the player is submerged
  
• RESURGENCE: Updated last quest step to require returning to the dropship, rather than the original ship location. Updated other quests steps capitilization
  
• Fix several issues which were causing tree fall sounds to behave incorrectly for clients on dedicated servers, and fix cypress tree landing sounds sometimes not playing the correct surface for clients
  
• Update voxel final hit audio behaviour to work with voxel re-initialisation changes
  
• Added a few more cases for the shield to delete itself on the off chance that the shield is not being deleted
  
• Tweaked storm prediciton timings to reduce frequency of back to back storms.
  
• Added additional initial storm steps and applied to specific missions
  
• Doubled the likelyhood of cosmetic storms appearing. This is mainly for Tier 0 / easy difficulties to have a significantly increased likelihood of cosmetic storms
  
• Fixed multiple async load warnings
  
• Fixed loading of certain assets during gameplay that could cause hitches
  
• Optimised deployable objects/benches. Deployables now have a custom ticking system that groups all of the deployables execution together to reduce CPU overhead
  
• Optimised atmosphere controller to rely more on cached data
  
• Optimised building pieces to cache several commonly accessed data table values
  
• Building pieces no longer tick. Any ticking logic that they previously had, such as updating stability, are now controlled by their owning grid and are processed across multiple frames. When loading prospects with large amounts of building pieces these operations would previously sync up and cause noticeable hitches multiple times per second
  
• Nativised several building grid background tasks which are now managed by an owning system that evenly spreads these tasks between all building grids. This evens out performance with large numbers of different building grids present in the world
  
• Removed tick from almost all trait components that were present on almost every item in the game
  
• Optimised spline system used by electrical/water pipe systems
  
• Weather events now use cached building data, reducing hitches when calculating which building pieces to damage in storms
  
• Multiple other small optimisations
  
• Swapped Flash Storm and Storm weather event tiers.
  
• Reduced Tier4 storm building damage during chaos events (still damages the same types of buildings, but for less damage)
  
• Range check and curve check when using SetTimeScale cheat (internal dev only/editor only)
  
• Updated Weather Generation based on adjusted design and feedback, reduced frequency of weather events back to a more reasonable amount
  
• Weather is now picked again via a weighted list
  
• Weather now generates one event per weather block
  
• Weather Forecast has been extended to 3 days
  
• Weather Blocks are now doubled in length
  
• Removed unused functions and variables after WeatherForecasting refactor and added more logging
  
• Fixed new modifiers moving across the screen, blocking reticule at 6 modifiers
  
• Fixed crash caused by components being removed from Deployables before they have unregistered with the deployable manager
  
• Tweaked storm frequency, adding in longer periods of quiet and more varied durations on weather forecasts
  
• Fixed potential issue with Error 65 reconnection and added additional logging around fail states
  
• Reduced default logging level of LogModifierState to reduce spam
  
• Reduced the severity of many early game missions in Olympus and increased some midgame missions that were using the easiest forecast.
  
• Tweaked ABYSS storm timings to help provide windows of opportunity
  
• ModifierStateContainers within MountInterface and Player Inventory now have a subtle pulsing animation when modifiers are added, instead of playing the normal animated transition
  
• Move to system that loads/saves all weather events at the forecast block level
  
• Weather forecast will reset for existing saves
  
• Fixed bug where mission-specific out-of-bounds mask would override map-based out-of-bounds mask; This would cause issues where player dropships could land out of playable areas on certain Olympus missions
  
• Fixed several crash bugs caused by optimisations to buildings and deployables
  
• Added an extra null check when displaying debug data about loading a bad data table row as this could cause a crash if it was in a really bad state
  
• Final tidy up for Weatherforecasting
  
• Fixing Extractors and Drills not ticking and extracting resources
  
• Fix an issue where the weather forecast would reset the pattern index if the game was saved+loaded at the exact start time of a weather block
  
• Fixing Crop Plot Glasshouse buffs being multiplied everytime they are checked
  
• Fixing Crop plot glasshouse percentage increase not being presented on clients correctly
  
• Reduced tier of the initial rough landing forecast.
  
• Reduced duration of the initial middle ground and mini-ramp forecasts, this will result in slightly quicker storms for those prospects
  
• Temporarily removed building stability queue optimisation as it causes stability to behave erratically
  

Future Content

• Setup 3 new caves for Inital Testing, Purple Quad, Prometheus
  
• Adjustments to spacizliser settings of T3 / T4 communicator
  
• Volcanic Rocks - disabled complex collision on LC_Cavefloor 01-03
  
• Adding T2 Communicator audio and adjusting BP implimentation for all communicators audio
  
• Small communicator audio tweaks
  
• Adding new Notifier to Deployable Base / Deployable Subsystem
  
• Adjusting Promethus Story Mission 1 to work with Audio and Quest Steps
  
• Adding an LC_GrassB set of Red Grass assets that are more sparse than the GrassA variants, for better blending of grassy areas
  
• Adding more bones to data table for some creatures death fall and small adjustment to better reflect various creatures death fall size
  
• Added skeletal mesh for the exotic tree device as well as a starting animation and a looped harvesting animation
  
• Swamp Rocks - LOD materials, convex hull collision on SW, GL, TU CanyonWall meshes
  
• Building Transition Cave from P1 to P2 Area on Purple Quad, DLC Map
  
• Started New Small Lava cave and Did a Foliage Pass On Green Quad, Prometheus
  
• First pass generation of Prometheus Landscape LODs
  
• Voxel placement pass, added and edited cliffs, p2 Purple Quad, DLC
  
• Adding correct creature in AI table for the swamp quad mount and zebra mount. Adjustments to the footstep layers
  
• Further fine tune and adjustments to quad footstep layers. Balanced mud vs dirt etc
  
• Added placeholder thumper item. Previously mined Voxels now support reinitialisation to original, unmined state
  
• Adding correct harvest sound to green tea leaf bush
  
• Added water immersion parameter to creature audio world movement sound, to help with soundset of low creatures moving through shallow water
  
• Adding needler water immersion movement sounds
  
• Transition Cave volumes added, added cliffs around macros & added voxels to P2 on Purple Quad, DLC Map
  
• Added New Small Lava Cave and Did A Foliage Pass On Both Blue and Green Quad, Prometheus
  
• Swamp Rocks - LOD materials, convex hull collision on SW, GL, TU Cliffs 10-12
  
• Added first pass thumper mechanics to deployable BP
  
• Added first pass of LC_DragonTree_Var1, including FTs and BPs, as well as Chopped and Burnt versions
  
• Added DEP_Thumper with animation
  
• Voxel placement pass, added and edited foliage, p2 Purple Quad, DLC
  
• Added split log meshes for LC_DragonTree
  
• Added Tomato plant highlight text
  
• Added ActorPrefab and ActorPrefabAsset classes to set up the new prefab system for replacing cave templates
  
• Added BP_ActorPrefabFunctionLibrary which will handle all coversions from prefab data to world actors
  
• Added CavePrefab to replace the current CaveTemplate implementation
  
• Converted all cave templates assets to prefabs
  
• Replaced cave templates on every outpost and Olympus/Styx levels
  
• Added support for prefab generation during the world generation process
  
• Leveling Out Landscape Under Lava Rivers/Lake on P2 Area & Cave Template Fixes Purple Quad, DLC Map
  
• Foliage Pass For Swamp and Grasslands and Fixed Some Broken Deep ore Deposits, Blue and Green Quad, Prometheus
  
• Replaced cave templates with prefabs on Terrain 019 Red/Yellow quads
  
• Added Mega Tree Prefabs to be used in Terrain 019
  
• Converted all tree levels to Mega Tree Prefabs
  
• Cave template utility now supports creating tree prefabs
  
• Flushed grass on Outpost 008
  
• Placed breakeable Obsedian and Scoria around p2, Purple Quad, DLC
  
• Replaced cave templates with prefabs on the rest of Terrain 019
  
• Added missing cave prefab for Terrain 019
  
• Added LC_SucculentTree with 3 variants, including FTs, BPs and Data Table entries
  
• Promethus Mission 2 Cave worms now do not continue to spawn and adding a quest step to clear them out
  
• Promethus Mission 2 Fixing Dialogue Ordering on Quests, and Adding Interaction Quest Step
  
• Fixing Initial Quests not always calling QuestStarted as they should be doing
  
• Adding in inital Lava Hunter assets, anims and rig
  
• Initial pass for tooling to find floating world objects
  
• Added new LandShark creature with first pass of behaviour set
  
• Leveling Out Landscape Under Lava Rivers/Lake on P2 Area & Swapped Out Tree Template Purple Quad, DLC Map
  
• Foliage Pass On Green Quad and Swapped BP Mangrove Trees for Prefab Trees , Green Quad, Prometheus
  
• Added BP_MegaTreePrefab to the list of approved actors
  
• Placed breakeable Obsedian and Scoria around p2, Purple Quad, DLC
  
• Cleand up breakeable Obsedian and Scoria, foliage and cliffs around p2, Purple Quad, DLC
  
• Increase Thumper Albedo textures to 4k as device is huge and needs the increased texel density. Add 'On' material variation and removed emissive setup from base material
  
• Fixed generation issues on 2nd layerof Geothermal Splines
  
• Resaved datatable to resolve build validation
  
• Adding Lava Hunter bite attack movement audio and event and anim notify
  
• Deleting old cave template assets
  
• Removed IsEditorOnly from ActorPrefabFunctionLibrary since it had strange warnings during cook
  
• Adding Lava Hunter out of lava movement audio and event and anim notify
  
• Resaved datatable to resolve build validation.. again
  
• Adding lava hunter death anim notify and lay egg audio and notify
  
• Added LC_JoshuaTree with 3 variants, including FTs and BPs and Data Table entries
  
• Adding Lava Hunter general move sounds and event and heavy slam event
  
• Leveling Out Landscape Under Lava Rivers/Lake on P2 Area Purple Quad, DLC Map
  
• Moved Super Kooled ice from all non iced surfaces and Foliage Pass on Blue and Green Quads, Prometheus
  
• Added various scaling mechanics to Thumper spawn events. Thumper spawning is now scaled by the amount of resources that will be regenerated. LandSharks will now spawn at high Thumper event difficulties. Fixed Unity build issue with WorldStatsSubsystem.h missing include. Added extra validation check inside ProspectSubsystem.h to prevent crash when accessing during game init
  
• Painted Reed Flowers and Yeast Plant in Swamp biome, pt2 Purple Quad, DLC
  
• Fixed mega trees generating at 0,0,0
  
• Move BP_MegaTreePrefab from approved class to ignored class so spawned trees in the world aren't doubled
  
• LC Terraces - adjusted material to better blend with surrounding rocks - WIP
  
• Adding lava hunter unique whoosh and unique stabber attack events and sounds and anim notifys
  
• More lava hunter attack sounds and footstep notifiers
  
• Thumper event can now change the resource type of regenerated voxels, but only to resource types that were already supported at that location
  
• Adding Lava Hunter unique lava footstep audio and event
  
• Leveling Out Landscape Under Lava Rivers/Lake on P2 Area Purple Quad, DLC Map
  
• Swaped The Final Megatrees into the Prefabs and Did a Foliage pass on Blue and Green Quads, Prometheus
  
• Geothermal banks - added material and duplicated spline meshes for use at the bottom of the terrace pools
  
• Fixed voxel-related crash when trying to reload old prospects
  
• Made Thumper recipe Dev-only
  

This week we’re re-working our weather systems, adding a forecasting system that gives you up to two hours of insight into approaching weather patterns.

This also adds more storm sequencing, creating up to seven different levels of severity to face and making this severity consistent across the entire map.

This also gives us the ability to customize sequences for specific missions, making more unique challenges applicable to the task at hand.

Finally, we’ve improved our backup system to create a backup save file every 30 minutes and provide more safeguards against accidental data loss.





Our weather systems are getting an overhaul.

Weather Forecasting changes players' relationships with storms. Previously, storms were randomized with the only unique element being the different variations exclusive to different biomes.

In the new system, Weather Forecasting will provide up to two hours of insight into the upcoming weather patterns. These Weather Patterns are applicable across the entire map, so outside of variations (eg, sandstorms in the desert, blizzards in the arctic), all other elements will be predictable and consistent regardless of your movements.

This new system also adds more variety to the severity of storms you will experience. Rather than providing either of two extremes, there are seven different levels ranging from a cosmetic impact to drastic damage.



The other added benefit for our development is it provides us with the ability to preset sequences and severities for specific missions. This new layer of detail will make each mission feel a little more unique and challenging in its own right. For example, the first few missions have lighter showers before introducing base-damaging maelstroms in later missions.

Changes for the player

The infographic shows that more severe storms are highly likely to damage up to Stone buildings.

In Easy difficulty storms won’t only be ‘cosmetic’ - you are more likely to see storms that do deliver some damage, even if at the lower end of the spectrum.

With effective forecasting, however, players can spend more time preparing rather than having a storm dropped on them unsuspectingly.



The UI in-game will appear in a bar, like above.

The icons and colours represent the severity of storms that could occur, and the lengths of the bar represent the duration of the forecast in which storms can occur and the severity that will be experienced at different stages.

It is important to note that weather events do not occur ‘continuously’ throughout these periods, rather the forecasting bar is showing the sections that predict how bad different periods may be. As with all weather predictions, expect some variation from what is shown.

We will be monitoring feedback for various missions and forecasts for adjustments if needed over the following weeks.





We’re improving our backup system this week, looking to provide more safeguards against accidental data loss caused by corruption, players' computers shutting down unexpectedly or good old human error.

Backups for Character data, Profile data and active Prospects are now created at 30-minute intervals and stored alongside the original file with a ‘.backup’ extension.

In the event of a save file corruption due to an unexpected system shutdown, the latest backup will be automatically restored, reducing the data loss to within a 30-minute interval for players.

Users can manually restore a backup by replacing the original file with the most recent backup and removing the ‘.backup’ file extension.

The save files will be kept for up to five hours of gameplay, allowing you to manually roll back in 30-minute increments within this time frame.





New Content

• Merge WeatherUpdate to Trunk
  
• Re-export datatables after merge
  
• Adding New Weather Patterns for all the Prospects
  
• Fix the parameter type in logs for Weather forecasting
  
• Added GGHost to the list of verified server providers
  
• Fixing Cheat to Trigger Quests
  
• Adding new Text to Objective List when Objectives are loading
  
• New Weather Icons, Adjusting Weather Block Tiers by Player Selected Difficulty and Adjusted UI to fit better in with the other HUD Elements
  
• Added remaining weather events to the All_Weather pool, added a All_Weather_MoreLight pool for use in early missions
  
• Lowered weather intensities maximum to facilitate better difficulty scaling
  
• Changed Open World weather pattern to MidPeak, reducing maximum intensity. (Hard difficulty will still get the maximum intensity weather rarely)
  
• Added a MostlyMild weather pattern, as a middle ground between later patterns and the interoductory pattern
  
• Moved some early missions and all Outposts to MostlyMild weather pattern
  
• Increased average storm severity on exploration missions
  
• Exposed client logging system to code and cleaned up multiple blueprints related to it
  
• Added client logging to connection errors
  
• Fixed some issues with the Error 65 auto-retry system
  
• Tierified storm damage events to ensure building damage is normalized throughout tiers
  
• Fixed invalid susbystem errors in UMG_ConnectingOverlay after renaming LogOverlaySubsystem
  
• Updated weather tier icons
  
• Resaved WeatherTierIcon datatable to update tier 0 storm icon
  
• Added an optional initial forecast to prospects (possible grace period to ease players in on new prospects)
  
• Fixed an order of operations issue that was causing forecast blocks to be skipped on save/load
  
• Fixed a bug where the client would only see the boss icon from 'Crazed Creature' dynamic mission when within a small area
  

Fixed

• Cleanup and improvement on Styx Landscape LODs. Textures were lowest mip due to memory constraints, now fixed for about 45% of the tiles, bug still exists making it difficult to generate correctly. Deleted LOD2 and LOD3 which aren't needed (triangle count is around 500) and caused additional unnecessary texture generation. Further improvements to remaining unfixed tiles to come
  
• Small adjustment to the lowest waterfall height volume / intensity to make sure very small waterfalls feel appropriate
  
• Fixed issue where double trunk trees weren't properly supported by TreeBase.cpp, and were causing crashes when chopped down
  
• Fix remaining Styx landscape LOD textures that failed to generate properly
  
• Fixed bug where SandWorm WorldBoss could sometimes teleport to the centre of the map.
  
• Fixed bug where dead SandWorm WorldBoss icons would re-appear when re-hosting a prospect.
  
• Reduced performance impact of SandWorm world bosses active in the world when players aren't nearby
  
• Improve Olympus distant landscape LODs (part 1), settings update, extracting assets individually and regenerating, deleting LOD2/LOD3
  
• Disabled skeleton ticking/refresh on SandWorms in the level that aren't currently relevant
  
• Fixed steam offline issues by forcing sessions to be configured for Lan
  
• Fixed a typo in a mission description
  
• Fixed a few typos in mission objectives
  
• Fixed a few typos
  
• Add some more logging around server suspend/resume
  
• Missions no longer start until a dropship has landed
  
• Fixing Dropship Dialogue so it players correctly before the quest dialogue
  
• Refactor and apply various optimisations to the multi point audio system to improve performance at scale. Should reduce the CPU cost of weather and fire audio systems, especially when applied to very large structures made of many grid bases, and refactor will make it easier to apply further optimisations
  
• Fix an issue where the UI does not refresh buffs when mounted
  
• Fix a merge bug in logging (internal only)
  
• Resubmitting file that didnt save properly
  
• Fixed crash caused by being able to click the cancel queued recipe item button in auto-crafting deployables (campfires/composters/etc)
  
• Added a FOV reset on destruction of firearm objects
  
• Fixes a bug where if you die while zoomed in with a rifle, you would stay zoomed in when you get revived
  
• Reworked how character/profile/prospect backups work; Backup files are now generated every 30 minutes of game time and up to 10 are stored at a time. Added functionality to attempt auto-repair of corrupt save files in the case of computer shutdown during save operation
  
• Changed order of ops for when grace period is applied due to UI refresh issue
  

New Content

• Cleaned up resources and painted LC foliage, in P2 Purple Quad, DLC
  
• Added art assets for ITM_Super_Cooled_Ice to project
  
• Added base rock asset for meta tree and updated meta tree blueprint with new assets
  
• Exotic Tree Device - added backpack mesh + material, edited textures
  
• Optimisation removing tick function from audio occlusion components
  
• Create an audio reflector interface to enable overriding of surface-based reflection values on specific actors. Apply to hollow trunk blueprints to enable appropriate audio delay effects when players are using them
  
• LC Terraces - added collision to terrace meshes
  
• Added ALN_Exotic_PlanA_Var1 wild version
  
• Adjustments to lava river. Adding flow parameter and adjustments to the sound and pitch of the speed
  
• Adding the predator bird attack vocal to the swoop animation. Not currently in use
  
• Added Mage Tree Roots & Genreal Clean Up on Blue Quad, DLC Map
  
• Added Geothermal Lakes and Foliage Pass of LC foliage, in P2 Purple Quad, DLC
  
• Clean up resources and painted LC foliage, in P2 Purple Quad, DLC
  
• Adjusted Frozen Rive Shader to use WP and replace default shader on SM
  
• Fixing 1.3.0. dialogue
  
• Adding in Dialogue for Promethus Main Mission Chain 1-5, Updating Quest Objectives and Item names to match dialogue
  
• Added Deep Ice Deposit Spawns to Artic on Green/Blue Quad, DLC Map
  
• Added growth stages for ALN_Exotic_PlantA
  
• Adding texture files that didn't get submitted properly for ALN_Exotic_PlantA
  
• Adjustments to swamp quad footsteps. Adding more mud layer and dirt grit
  
• Fixing Promethus Progression by granting account flags when players finish missions 1,2,3
  
• Fixing Deployable Varitation Spawning in Prebuilt structure code
  
• Updating Prometheus Story 2 so the prebuit structure spawns correctly and adding new structure json
  
• Removing Removed Flags from being references into the Talents Table
  
• Updating Prebuild Structure for the Treehouse as well as updating the base structure icons
  
• Updating Promethus Story 1 & 2 to use a better flow for prebuild structures
  
• First pass on lights support for lava rivers, disabled by default
  
• Clean up resources and painted LC foliage, in P2 Purple Quad, DLC
  
• Added cave with lava Cave_LC_SML_004
  
• Foliage Pass on LC biome, clean up decals and resources, P2 Purple Quad, DLC
  
• First pass on volcano mesh and textures
  
• Updating Prometheus Story 3 quest steps and adding quest markers into the prometheus terrain
  
• Updating Fish data to include 04, 05 and 06 variations. Suffixing BP with names and uniforming DT row names
  
• LC Stones - added mesh, textures, FTs, BPs and data table entries
  
• Volcanic Rocks - assigned correct PMs to materials
  
• Adding in 3rd person Sledge hit animation and custom focusable for the sledgehammer to give more control over attachement offset etc
  
• Implementation Of Volcano Mesh, Building Rest Of Volcano & Removed Old Impassable Meshes on Yellow/Red Quad, DLC Map
  
• Swamp Rocks - assigned correct PMs to materials
  
• Grasslands Rocks - assigned correct PMs to materials
  
• Adding Sols Arctic Hideout Base
  
• Updating Prometheus Mission 4, adding Sols Hideout, Swaping Boss Creature to be a Snow Stalker and Updating Questmarkers and locations for Quest
  
• Tundra Rocks - assigned correct PMs to materials
  
• Replaced Crevasse Static Meshes with BP Versions & Shorten Waterfalls that are too Long on Green/Blue Quad, DLC Map
  
• Landscape Pass On Lava Rivers In Phase 1 and 2 Areas and Foliage Pass on Lava biome, clean up decals and resources, P2 Purple Quad, DLC
  
• Regenerated Landscape LOD textures for Olympus to fix blurry low quality assets
  
• Added foliage in LC biome, cleaned up decals and resources, P2 Purple Quad, DLC
  
• Further small adjustment to small waterfalls volume curve (small vs big)
  
• Setting up Voxel Distributions for Prometheus
  
• LC Cliffs - added proper convex hull collision
  
• Adding footstep crack ice sweetener event and sounds. Not currently hooked up. To use footstep override
  
• Fix Striker GFur settings and add LODs
  
• Add or fix LOD settings on various assets
  
• Adding Correct Resource Collection to the various new plants added to prometheus
  
• LC LavaCold meshes - added convex hull collision
  
• Fix GeodeLamp asset settings, textures, LODs, etc
  
• Finish Volcano Blockout Red Quad, DLC Map
  
• Add Hyena, Cougar, Elephant, Jaguar, Piranha and SnowLeopard decoration statue data (not yet available to craft). Icons and recipes still need creating
  
• Adding System for spawning Exotic Plants
  
• Geothermal Pools - added convex hull collision to meshes LC_Geotherm_03-07, disabled RVT on their materials
  
• Added Cave with Lava Cave_LC_MED_005
  
• Landscape Pass On Lava Rivers In Phase 1 and 2 Areas and Foliage Pass on Lava biome, clean up decals and resources, P2 Purple Quad, DLC
  
• Seperating Out Fishing Bench and allowing 2 devices to be placed on one deploy
  
• Fishing bench can now craft rods and lures on one side and fillet fish on the other
  
• Changed popping log array from front and re-appending from the back to a circular buffer
  
• Removed ELogCategories enum and moved it to a data table
  
• Array doesn't change size after initialization anymore
  
• Removed unnecessary functions
  
• Changed BPs to use new DT enums/text
  
• Changes were suggested from an upsource review
  
• Reconciling offline work. fixing build validation
  
• Went through all relevant files and refreshed all nodes and force saved the DT
  
• Exotic Tinted Plants Resource Placement on Green/Blue Quad, DLC Map
  
• Volcanic Rocks - Convex hull collision on LRG and MED rocks
  
• Volcanic Rocks - Convex hull collision on MAC rocks
  
• Exotic Tinted Plants Resource Placement on Purple Quad and A Foliage Pass, Purple Quad, DLC Map
  
• Adding t3 and t4 communicator computer audio and events and BP addition
  
• Finished Cave with Lava Cave_LC_MED_005
  
• Volcanic Rocks - convex hull collision on cave entrance meshes
  
• General clean up of foliage, decals and riverbanks in Grasslands and Tundra, Green Quad, DLC
  
• Replicating the RunQuest Variable
  
• Fix missing uproperty specifiers in MultiPointAudioNodeArray members
  

Week Fifty Nine is here, and we’ve focused this update on multiple dedicated server and core game bugs and improvements that have been reported and ticketed over the New Year period.

The Dedicated Server search functionality has received an overhaul, with new ways to tag and sort your favourite servers, and faster load times with more details to make scanning results simpler and more efficient.

A large number of core game bugs were reported to us by our player base, and we’ve addressed the majority of them this week. Check out the long list below, with more in the patch notes.

Finally, we’ve gone into depth about our strategy for dealing with ongoing performance issues and the five key areas that build our approach.





We’re improving the Dedicated Server search results functionality this week, taking on considerable community feedback and data to improve the UX for players.

• Added the ability to search for servers via IP address, with its own ‘Direct Connect’ tab
  
• Disabled the engine LAN search option for Steam's LAN searching instead due to the game crashing while switching search types
  
• ‘Game Version’ on Dedicated Server results that are out of date are now easier to read
  
• Added ‘Friend' and 'History’ tabs to the server browser - Joining a server will now add it to the History tab
  
• Increased max server results to 10,000
  
• Servers will now show up as they appear without the need to refresh the list or restart the game
  
• Servers can be marked as ‘favourites’ and will show up in a ‘favourites’ tab
  
• Added ability to connect via ‘Lan’ for local connections, with its own ‘Lan’ tab in the table
  
• Server tabs are now ordered ‘Internet - Favourites - History - Lan - Friends - Direct Connect’
  

Alongside our Dedicated Server search results improvements, we’re addressing a range of core game issues that were raised over the Christmas period.

• Fixed an issue where clients were unable to place or rotate wall signs
  
• Fixed an issue where clients using the glassworking bench, were not being correctly displayed the ‘yellow’ border around an item when water was added, signally the item would be ‘reinforced’
  
• Fixed 'Out-of-bounds' check not occurring when the player was seated on mount
  
• Investigated and Fixed Issues with Healing Module not always applying the Aura
  
• Fixed an issue where enzymes geysers were spawning each time you started a session making it seem like their count was resetting
  
• Fixed an issue where killing animals with your mount could fail due to a bug
  
• Fixed an issue where the UI was allowing players to deploy items in the space station
  
• Fixed an issue where the fridge/icebox were displaying incorrect spoilage timers for clients and causing issues with spoilage
  
• Fixed a bug that was causing sort options to not work on containers
  
• Fixed an issue where modifiers would sometimes fail to clear in the UI when timed out
  
• Fixed a bug where players would unexpectedly lose an attachment when removing multiple from an item
  
• Fixed an issue where people could lose items in space by ‘control-clicking’ in some circumstances
  
• Fixed an issue where the grace period was not being applied while seated in the dropship for some players
  
• Fixed an issue where item spoil timers wouldn't take into account the proper multiplier stats when combining stacks or removing from stacks. ‘Sturdy Stalks’ talent, for example, should now work as expected.
  
• Damage Types and Colors have been revamped, with new damage types being added for future content. Felling damage is now displayed when cutting down trees instead of melee damage.
  

For new players and old, performance is a frequent topic of conversation, and we’re aware of how important it is to you all. At this time, we have half of the Icarus Tech Team dedicated to this task.

While we are doing our best to get these fixes to you as fast as we can, changes related to performance require thorough investigation and careful consideration before any decisions are made. Rushing headfirst in often causes more damage than good.

We are currently focusing our efforts on five main areas:

Engine Performance

Many of the systems we use in Icarus are provided to us as part of Unreal Engine. Our philosophy has always been not to fight the engine, but at times we have found it necessary to tweak the way some of the systems work in order to achieve some of our goals.

Game Systems

In many of our weekly updates, we do our best to bring you new gameplay features that add dozens of hours to your gameplay experience in Icarus. At the same time, we are doing our best to continue to profile the game, in order to minimize the number of operations that need to occur on each frame.

Memory

Loading gameplay features into memory has a knock-on effect - the loading of one object can trigger a long chain of other objects to load alongside it. In order to prevent this chain reaction from using up too much memory, one of our focuses is to scrutinize the dependencies that form between objects and remove them wherever we can.

Stutters & Garbage Collection

One of the many features of Unreal Engine is automatic garbage collection. Convenient as it is, it can sometimes result in stutters during gameplay when large amounts of memory are reclaimed at once. We are investigating different ways to work with the engine to better minimize the impact of this step.

Connection

There is no “silver bullet” when it comes to optimizing networking - it mainly comes down to the continued efforts to profile the multiplayer experience, reduce the size of the network packets we send, and reduce the number of packets we need to send each frame.


As we continue forward we will continue to make small improvements every week to address all the issues mentioned above. These fixes and optimizations are cumulative, with the improvements in performance in the last 12 months a reflection of this ‘piece by piece’ approach.





Fixed/QoL

• Fixed a few typos in names and descriptions
  
• Update dropship text to clarify that workshop items in inventory are returned to the station as well
  
• Remove old Waternode assets
  
• Delete unused mountain heightmap images
  
• Move PFS out of root content folder into FOL/Spawners folder. Left redirector in place for now
  
• Move AC_Plant assets out of root FOL folder and into AC sub folder. Fixed filenames
  
• Clean up FOL folder assets
  
• Move MF out of random ENV/GEN folder and into MAT/MF folder
  
• Fixed a few typos in dialogue subtitles
  
• Adding new music cues to the correct group routing so the music slider adjusts their volume
  
• Fixes for Grass filenames and texture settings, deleted unused content
  
• Fix proxy meshes for Drying Rack not showing for Giant Steak or Leather. Fixed asset filenames. Fixed recipe name typo
  
• Adding custom shield break audio
  
• Add GFur to Shield
  
• Fix Shield LODs
  
• Delete Shield BP from ITM folder
  
• Added new 'Bounds Mask' EQS test that can be used to query whether a generated EQS location is outside of current Terrain/Prospect bounds mask if applicable
  
• Swapping Enzyme Geyser to be a FindOnly Reload Resolve Policy, prevent duplicate geysers from spawning and preventing the resetting of the completion count on load
  
• Fixed issue where animals would bug out when killed by a client's mount while they were riding it
  
• Fixed 'Out-of-bounds' check not occuring when player seated on mount
  
• Enable logging in UnrealTargetConfiguration.Test (internal dev change only)
  
• Changed space loadout tab to be view only. This fixes the case of control clicking items into a non-existent player loadout from your space inventory. The regular loadout screen is unaffected
  
• Can no longer sort inventories marked as 'remove-only' (Overflow bags, NPC corpses, etc.), fixes bug where trying to sort one of these inventories would remove all contents
  
• Attachments that are removed from items on the Alteration bench are now moved to main inventory when modified item is shifted
  
• Fixed a bug where in certain circumstances the shield wouldn't be deleted and would be stuck to the players arm
  
• Fixed bug where initial name given to mount wasn't displayed until closing then re-opening mount inventory screen. Fixed bug where clients aren't able to set name or access behaviours of tamed mount they've just claimed without re-opening mount inventory screen
  
• fixed validation error. meshable unsaved changes
  
• Ensure that modifiers that are in the process of being garbage collected are factored in to removal logic
  
• Rework modifier UI to be event driven (and not to fire every frame) for performance
  
• Ensure mission timers show the correct value when previewing a local save (load button UI)
  
• Removed unncessary eating GOAP action from Juvenile setup, fixes log spam regarding missing 'FoodContainer' BB Key
  
• Player footstep noises are now tagged correctly so NPCs can differentiate them from other noises
  
• Fix sorting by tag on containers
  
• Moved inventory tag queries from an array on BP_IcarusPlayerControllerCharacter to a new datatable SortTypePriority
  
• Change EnzymeGeyser ToggleEditorLocator function into separate Enable/Disable functions for multi-select purposes. Hide locators in Styx
  
• Added code include to AfflictionChance to fix compile errors
  
• Added QueryPort value to session result data to retain any needed information to favorite a server on steam
  
• Added OnFindSessionResult callback to engine code so servers can be displayed on screen as they are received instead of waiting for thousands of results
  
• Steam server searching can now accept filter queries, allowing players to specify a specific IP to search
  
• Added server browser tabs for Favorites/LAN/Direct Connect
  
• Fixed a bug where deployable placement would become desynced between server/client sometimes
  
• Fixed issue where deployables supporting custom rotation weren't guaranteed to have the same custom rotation when trying to deploy on server/client
  
• Removed Server versioning debug logging from Matchmaking Subsystem
  
• Changed server result logging in Matchmaking Subsystem to verbose
  
• Removed old Crafting Recipes for the old fishing rod and trap as these are now no longer valid
  
• Disabled the engine LAN search option for Steam's LAN searching instead due to the game crashing while switching search types
  
• Fixed clicking on server results not opening the join prospect window after favorites system was added
  
• Game Version on Dedicated Server results that are out of date are now easier to read
  
• Added Friend and History tabs to the server browser
  
• Joining a server will now add it to the History tab
  
• Increased max server results to 10000
  
• Added user facing log overlay
  
• Fixed a bug where clicking on 'deploy' in space will softlock the UI/game. Deploy button no longer appears in space
  
• Improved stability of several account migration steps
  
• Re-balanced how footstep noises are perceived by aggressive NPCs; footstep noise slowly builds up NPC aggression based on distance rather than triggering detection on the first footstep heard.
  
• Balance changes to aggressive AI slightly increasing time to detect players.
  
• Corpses currently held by player are no longer valid targets for carnivorous NPCs looking for food
  
• Inventory spoil rate is now replicated to clients correctly, fixing issue where remaining seconds before spoil wouldn't update correctly for clients
  
• Fixed issue where item spoil timers wouldn't take into account the proper multiplier stats when combining stacks or removing from stacks; Sturdy Stalks talent should now work as expected
  
• Split Peer to peer and dedicated server searching so one can run without the other, allowing peer to peer players to never query dedicated server until needed
  
• Added localization text for server browser
  
• Added possible crash fix during server browser displaying servers as they appear
  
• Removed friend count/filter on server browser since that's now managed by it's own tab
  
• Fixed compile errors in old tutorial screen
  
• Fixed a bug where when using a glassworking bench with a connection to water, the client would not get the updated icons for altered glass objects
  
• Direct Connect no longer shows all servers if no IP was entered
  
• Improved the look of the server name search box to make it more obvious that it's a search box
  
• Fixed crash when refreshing results in the server browser
  
• Fixed issue where the dedicated server browser wouldn't clear it's results before refreshing, causing duplicate results
  
• Changed steam listing parameters from Unreal Test to Icarus so server results can be viewable in the steam client browser
  
• Exposed Steam AsyncTaskTimeout as an OnlineSubsystemSteam engine config, so servers can increase the default 15 second timeout if needed
  
• Changed the item mesh in 'Mesh_Item_Shield_Wooden' from a static mesh to a skeletal mesh
  
• Removed the old 'back context' mesh and EquipBackMesh BP
  
• This fixes the BP code not being called, therefore fixing the hit audio not playing and also the shield mesh not being deleted
  
• Fixed repair actions not being available on space inventory screen
  
• Added extra logging to steam package flag fetching process, should help debug issues players are having when unsuccessfully trying to access Supporter's Edition content.
  
• Package flag fetching process will continually retry while in the main menu in the event of a failure.
  
• Added additional Sentry Event tags to help with searching for specific bugs in web interface
  

Future Content

• Adding 2 Fishing rods, 2 Fishing Traps, 1 Lure, 1 Wall Mount, 1 Aquarium, and the Fishing Bench Talents, Blueprints, Recipes and Unlocks
  
• Setting up Fishing Alterations and Lures, adding new gameplay tags and fishing inventory setup
  
• Setting up new fishing deployables
  
• Setdressing Pass On New Large Ice Cave, AC_MED_010, Prometheus
  
• Placed Cliffs around lave river in Phase 2 Area on Purple Quad, DLC Map
  
• Created extra rock formations and placed Cliffs around lave lakes/rivers in Phase 2 Area on Purple Quad, DLC Map
  
• Landscape and Decal Pass in pt2, added cliffs and riverbanks, Part2, Purple Quad, DLC
  
• Adding spider events and anim notifiers. Unique whoosh sound and data table entries etc
  
• Replace SW_GroundCoverB references to use v2 models
  
• Adding spider attack audio
  
• Adding spider death vocalisation and flinch also short attack whoosh
  
• Setdressing Pass On New Large Ice Cave, AC_MED_010, Prometheus
  
• Created Transition Caves Entrances to Red Quad from P2 Area & Add Transition Caves from P1 to P2 Area on Purple Quad, DLC Map
  
• Landscape and Decal Pass in pt2 around cliffs and riverbanks, Part2, Purple Quad, DLC
  
• Adding spider roar / spot sound
  
• Adding Lava River audio and data table entry
  
• Landscape/Decal Painting in P2 Area & Added Terrace Pools in P2 Area on Purple Quad, DLC
  
• Setdressing, CaveWorm and Voxel Pass On New Large Ice Cave, AC_MED_010, Prometheus
  
• Adding spider move sound and other small adjustments ot the spider distance filtering for the footsteps
  
• Landscape and Decal Pass in pt2 around cliffs and riverbanks, Part2, Purple Quad, DLC
  
• More updates to the spider. More vocalisations added to anims and also added a shoot web sfx
  
• Added proper Destructible mesh for CF_Berry_Bush_01 as it was originally using BushA_01
  
• Small reduction in volume of spider and other balance tweaks
  
• Adjust Lava Lake material and tweak colors to match Lava River Material
  
• Adding Rockdog enrage sizzle layer
  
• Add Prometheus AI spawn setup. Reorganized AISpawnZones DT
  
• Added Exotics to All New Ice and Tundra Caves and Did a Polish Pass On AC_MED_007, Prometheus
  
• Landscape/Decal Painting in P2 Area & Added Terrace Pools in P2 Area on Purple Quad, DLC
  
• Landscape and Decal Pass in pt2 around cliffs and riverbanks, Part2, Purple Quad, DLC
  
• Balance adjustments to needler and a few other creatures. Slightly lower volume. Less spawn rate
  
• Adding another swamp ambient creature and fine tune and adjustments to spawn rates of other creatures
  
• Added option to turn on/off geothermal vfxs on BPs
  
• Assigned correct Destructible meshes for both GL and TU Tussock Assets, which included creating the associated DM BPs and materials
  
• Small adjustments to spider balance. Also added click ambient creature to lava biome when around foliage
  
• Adding new Damage Types (Shatterring, Felling, Frost, Electric, Explosive, Wind)
  
• Seperating Melee & Projectile Damage types from Physical (Still Stat Driven)
  
• Added a new datatable to define various damage information such as damage stats, resistance stats and various tag queries
  
• Replaced various damage calls to use the new damage types
  
• Adding new stats, both damage and resistances for each of the new damage types
  
• Adding Sledgehammer description & lore
  
• Fixing up payloads which where using old damage types
  
• Small volume adjustments to grasslands and swamp biome. Increasing slightly to keep in closer line with other biomes while still maintaining unique feel
  
• Small increase to overall tundra biome volume and subtleties
  
• Fixing up Shattering Stat Calculations
  
• Fixing Hittable Rock Behaviour so Breakable rocks only take shatter damage
  
• Landscape/Decal Painting in P2 Area, Enabled Stream Geo Pools in P2 Area & Blocked Out Transition Cave on Purple Quad, DLC
  
• Finished Two New Small Ice Template Caves and Added 3 Large Caves to Blue Quad for Inital Testing, Blue Quad, Prometheus
  
• Delete unused Spider assets
  
• Fix Spider texture filenames and settings
  
• Unified Spider GFur settings
  
• Added Lava VFXs, Bubbling/Smoke/CoolDown/Splash/Lavafall
  
• Adjustments to Lavafall Material and WT
  
• Landscape and Decal Pass in pt2 around cliffs and riverbanks, Part2, Purple Quad, DLC
  
• Adding spider shake booty sound and adjustments to snow striker animation notifier timings
  
• Adding sledgehammer whoosh to animation and also various new creature reverb adjustments and spacial tweaks
  
• Submitting Mini Lava Bomber and textures
  
• Setting Meshes for Raw and Clean Exotic Resources
  
• Adding Recipes & Talents for Exotic Harvester and Processor
  
• Setting up Exotic Tree Node and Harvesting Device
  
• Adding Exotic Processor Mesh and Setting up Actor States
  
• Setting up t3/t4 Mission Communicator Meshes and Setting up Actor Camera Views
  
• Setting up Prometheus Open World and enabling selection in the menu (Feature Locked)
  
• Removed whoosh from sledhgehammer impact sound and added unique whoosh to sledgehammer animation. Slight adjustment to sledgehammer impact spacial
  
• Fixing Raw Exotic Resource Mesh
  
• Added description and flavour text for brick tier items
  
• Added Exotic and Mission Communication Icons for 1.3.0 and added to datatable
  
• Adding Deployables to the prebuilt structure system
  
• Fixing Electric Extractor Mesh which was swapped out accidentily in a previous commit
  
• Adjustment to striker reverb send, fixed wrong fooptstep anim notify on leopard / snow leopard and fixed timing of anim notify
  
• Landscape/Decal Painting in P2 Area & Blocked Out Transition Cave on Purple Quad, DLC
  
• Setup 3 new caves for Inital Testing, Blue Quad, Prometheus
  
• Clean up of spawned resources and painted LC foliage, in P2 Purple Quad, DLC
  
• Placed Procedural foliage volumes and spawned resources, Pt2 Purple Quad, DLC
  
• Adding Basic Fishing Data Structures, Stats, Spawn Config and Zones, and Library functions to catch Fish
  
• Adding Cheat to quickly catch fish without the required items for testing various spawn zones, weightings and stat assignments
  
• Adjustment to spider whoosh
  
• Adding new Fishing Cheat for Quickly Fishing in Different Zones & Other Functions to the Fishing Library
  
• Added Basic Fish and Fish Chunks Items for Testing, these are seperate from the existing fish items
  
• Fixed Fish Weight & Length stats being the opposite of what they where
  
• Add FarShadow settings to Styx persistent blockers to improve distance shadow casting visuals
  
• Adding new stats which effect various stats of fish which are caught
  
• Modified Fishing Library functions to take in a generic actor as the 'fisher' so objects other than the player can fish (Fishing Traps for example)
  
• Added basic stats to the Fishing Rod
  
• Building Transition Cave from P1 to P2 Area on Purple Quad, DLC Map
  
• Added ITM_Ingot_Obsidian to replace DEP_Furnace_IngotObsidian
  
• Delete V1 brick kit assets deprecated by V2 assets
  
• Added Color control to NS_Meta and Emission Colorto MA_meta
  
• Fixed waterfall seam on Green Quad, Added Mage Tree Roots on Blue Quad, DLC Map
  
• Foliage Pass of LC foliage, in P2 Purple Quad, DLC
  

This week we’re introducing a new mission to Styx, similar to DEEP VEIN and PAYDAY which guides players to explore the many exotic deposits across the map. REMNANT will provide multiple outcomes in a dynamic environment, perfect for new players or exotic farmers.

We’re also making a change to exotic extraction, providing a more balanced extraction experience across our three biomes, as requested by our community in Feature Upvote.

Enjoy!





This week, we’re bringing you a new mission, REMNANT: Extraction. Similar to the introductory missions DEEP VEIN and PAYDAY, REMNANT guides players to place a number of radars in various locations to find, extract and launch exotics into orbit.

REMNANT takes place on Styx however, which has a much higher saturation of exotic deposits on the map, so the mission has a wide variety of outcomes. Lines from the radars will point players to different exotic deposits with varying distances, and allow them to learn the mechanics in a more dynamic environment with more paths to choose from.

Your briefing is as follows:

REMNANT: Extraction

// OPERATOR: UDA
// BIOME: The Great River
// BACKGROUND: UDA advises additional prospector training with advanced scanning techniques, after clearing the area of easily found exotic deposits
// MISSION: Follow UDA radar procedure, locate and extract exotics, deliver exotics to orbit
// TERMS: All extraction equipment and materials are to be provided by the Contractor





We’re making a requested change to exotic extract, unifying the drill slot count across biomes and increasing relative mining speed to provide a balance.

All three biomes (forest, arctic and desert) will now have two extractors, reducing forest from three to two. To balance out the reduction, each extractor will extract exotics 50% faster, which provides a better situation for single player session where players may not want to have to craft multiple extractors.

Effectively, this just reduces the forest biome to only having two extractors, to be in line with the arctic and desert biomes, but these 2 extractors will be as effective as the previous 3 allowed in the forest biome.





We’re addressing a range of bugs to kick off 2023. While you’ll find others in our detailed change log, we wanted to address these three in particular:

• Fixed a bug where if a client holds a shield and a one-handed weapon the UI doesn't show the shield highlighted
  
• Fixed an issue where Dropships & Dynamic missions can trigger outside of the playable area by implementing a new ‘Bounds Mask’
  
• Before writing to Character/Profile/Prospect data, temporary backups of original files are created to as safeguards in case of an unexpected shutdown or game crash during the saving process. Save file restore occurs on the initial application load
  

Week Fifty Seven is here, and it brings our newest equipable item, shields. The first iteration released this week is the wooden shield, a Tier 2 item that blocks up to 75% of damage when used to defend against enemy attacks.

The shield can be equipped in your off-hand and used with a melee weapon or tool, but be aware it will suffer durability decline when used, at the benefit of your health bar.





Shields have been added as an equipable off-hand item.

The first version, the Wooden Shield, is crafted at the Crafting Bench and costs 14 wood, 12 fibre, 4 leather and 2 iron ingot. These can either be held on their own or with any one-handed melee weapon such as a hunting knife.

You can block up to a 90° angle in front of you, reducing damage by up to 75% using the right click on your mouse. The use of shields consumes a small amount of stamina, similar to any action with a melee weapon.

The shield takes damage when used to defend you from attacks, and will lose durability over time, so be prepared to repair it on the go.

Originally posted by author

We decided to add shields to open up some new gameplay and combat opportunities.

As ‘jousting’ is currently a strategy for some creatures we wanted to provide an alternative and start to expand players' and creatures' reactions in combat. The shield allows players to quickly block an attack if there is no time to move or to keep the creature's focus on you while your co-op players deal the damage.

With new creatures and behaviors on the way, the shield may come in handy in the coming patches. This is just the first shield to be introduced to Icarus but expect more with various skills, stats and modules in future.

- Jake Dodunski, Project Lead