Icarus News

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
  

Styx is a FREE DLC for our fans featuring a new 64 km2 map, 14 new missions and new creatures

Thank you for supporting Icarus through our first six months since launch! As a thank you to our fans, we are making our new Styx Map & Missions Pack free for everyone who has bought Icarus.

This new 64km² map doubles the size of Icarus' playable area. With it come new missions, new creatures and fresh regions of Icarus to explore.

An entire new 64km² map
14 new missions
New creatures including crocodiles, Komodo Dragons, Kea (mountain parrot) with more to come
The entire map unlocked and able to be explored including locations such as The Wall, Ring Lake and The Great River
Missions that effect the map and unlock shortcuts to new areas

The Styx Map & Missions Pack is available to play now in this week’s update. You’ll find it in the Prospect Select Screen. No separate download is required.

Styx is free for everyone who has bought Icarus so far, but in future (we’ll let you know if) it may become a paid DLC pack. Read below for a more expansive discussion on this from our Gamerunner, Dean Hall



[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Originally posted by author

This new territory is centered around a long braided river which the First Cohort prospectors named Styx, after one of the rivers of the underworld.

The Styx territory been locked down for several years after an ‘incident’ between the UDA and a group from the African Coastal States. Rumors have circulated ever since, but both parties remain tight lipped about the circumstances that led to the previous lockdown. Spanning forested, arid and arctic biomes, there are reports of unnatural growth rates and mutations in the planet’s wildlife.

Now the Lagos Unit has suddenly changed their stance, declaring the previously uninhabitable area as safe and opening up several new licenses for prospects. Of course, they’ll still take a cut of whatever you find…

[h2]Author: Dean Hall, Gamerunner[/h2]

[h2]Why do a Map Pack using the same biomes?[/h2]
When we started the Icarus project we knew we wanted to try doing something different. When we released the beta, it quickly showed us we needed to adapt the game rapidly to make up for some shortfalls in what we were doing. We also revisited not just what we were doing with the game, but how we were doing it. Focusing on developing a competency to quickly iterate and deliver both changes large and small at a weekly cadence.

As part of this we needed to revisit our process behind world creation, our "world builders" team. In making "Olympus", what we named our first map, we learned a great deal we wanted to do differently as we approach our future content. However, we felt uncomfortable with moving straight into doing a whole stack of new biomes until we had applied the changes we needed with what we already had. This is how this new world was born.

While I can appreciate everyone, including our own team, wants to jump straight into alien and exciting new biomes, it was critical we ensure we had a well oiled machine making our worlds before we introduced new biomes into the mix. We decided to package this work up, and join that effort with work from our design team to deliver a map and mission pack.

In the past I've done quote sections, but I think it's really important I outline some of the "sky level" thinking around Styx, based on some of the comments and concerns I've seen on the forums and from our great content creators. Hopefully this section below helps give some insight into what this Styx pack is, what it isn't, and how it factors into the learning we are trying to make as we head towards "real" new content.

[h2]How does a free DLC work?[/h2]
We all keenly felt the rocky launch in the team, and we've all been looking for ways to provide a thank you to those who stuck with us. So we put aside work on our "big" DLC plans to focus on the structural changes we needed to make, both in the studio and the game, and do our "homework" as a form of small DLC we could provide for free to those who stuck with us.

Everyone who owns the game now, and for the current future, will always own this DLC map pack for free. While we don't have concrete plans to charge for this map pack in the future yet, it's something we would look at down the line. However, everyone who already owns the game at that point would still have the map pack - only those buying the game new at that point would not.

[h2]If it was being sold, how much would you price it?[/h2]
Again to confirm, nobody who owns the game now would ever pay for it. But to give an idea into our thinking here, my estimate would be a in the "few dollars" range. We see small content packs like this as being worth, if not free, something in the range of 4-6 USD at best. As always, appreciate thoughts on this - but I'd like to labor the point that this, for now at least, is more of a "sea trial" for us rather than a realistic paid DLC plan.

[h2]DLC content vs DLC Expansions? Huh?[/h2]
We want to be able to grow the game especially for those we really like the unique approach we are trying with the genre, as part of this we've adopted a few broad principles approaching DLC for the game:

• DLC ownership tests should be as loose as possible; overly restrictive DLC can have massive negative impacts on the ability of people to play with their friends
  
• DLC content (like the Styx Map Pack) should be priced very modestly (a few dollars), just representing "more of the same" so their pricing should be very modest.
  
• DLC expansions should be expansive changes to the game; but should coincide with improvements to the base game as well. Care should be taken to strike a balance: it is very easy for game developers to have content in the expansions that really should be in the base game.
  

Our studio is independent and through this whole process we are learning a great deal. We want to learn how to produce good content, that is reasonably and sensibly priced, that doesn't restrict peoples abilities to play with friends. We will be working with you all, in the months and years, to strike this balance. Please do continue to let us know your thoughts as always.

[h2]Why not vehicles?[/h2]
I might be laboring the point a little, but if our beta and launch taught us anything - it was that we needed to make some changes to how we were working. Jumping straight onto complex new tasks without confirming we had learned the lessons was dangerous. We all understand, and agree, that "cool" new content is needed. Transport has been an issue we have long debated internally, and in fact we devoted an entire milestone (with good results) to how we would approach this.

It is critical that we prove we have made the required adaptions as a studio as well as balanced the game enough that it can survive changes in player travel time before we tackle issues such as vehicles. It would be very easy for us to destroy the experience, either by throwing a major new mechanic like vehicles in or changing the experience to be more like other games.

[h2]Why haven't you moved faster?[/h2]
It was pretty apparent to us within the first day of the beta that we needed to change not only the game, but also how we were working. In my experience, that's the nature of game development. To try bolster our suggestion we are working as hard as we can, we committed to building trust by producing a solid update every week after launch (including holidays). We're proud of achieving that, and we've been really pleased with the response to that - both the positive and negative feedback. This feedback, so long as it's constructive, is extremely useful and how we make a better game.

[h2]Where are the alien biomes?[/h2]
In addition to the reasons why we haven't moved to new biomes above it would likely not be a surprise to many that we aren't happy with some performance aspects of the game. Throwing some new biomes into the game without addressing any performance concerns related to them, would be adding a lot of new textures, models, sounds, animations and such and make matters much worse.

Not all our different teams work at the same cadence as every other team, and we already have a backlog of exciting (and in some cases, downright terrifying) new animals. But we can't just throw these into the game until we can confirm we can wield them properly. So, while frustrating, we are taking our time. Luckily the content work around that has been able to already begin, while we lay the groundwork.

[h2]The Kea?[/h2]
Take a moment and go read about one of the most amazing creatures in the world, the Kea, a Mountain Parrot from New Zealand. As a mountaineer it's been my privilege to be close to these incredible creatures. An animal that teach each other through play, we like to think that if the Kea could play video games, they'd love to be swooping through our terrains.

[h2]Final thoughts?[/h2]
I realize as a consumer it can be very frustrating watching a game, especially one you think has potential but falls short, not quite hit where you want to be. Our team definitely feels the pain for every user reporting a bug, losing their gear, or just having a bad time with a poor mechanic. We are though, resolute with the broad idea of "session based". We just have some homework still to do to deliver that.

As a thank you, and a big "sorry" for the beta and the launch, we hope Styx shows you we have improved in our ability to deliver content - and that we can take those lessons and apply them to exciting new biomes, creatures, mechanics, and features in the future.
- Dean Hall, Gamerunner





The UDA has assigned 14 new contracts for prospectors to tackle, to complete objectives the original task force failed.

Although Styx features familiar forest, arctic and desert biomes, the map provides a fresh maze of pathways and missions to explore, including some time-saving shortcuts that can be permanently unlocked by some missions.

Your time in the Styx territory will start with an exploration mission, before branching out into more challenging extermination, expedition and research contracts with more lucrative rewards.

The first 14 missions are available now (see the Changelog below), with two more (RENDEZVOUS: Delivery and BALLISTIC: Extermination) unlocking next week.





If you haven’t played Icarus for a while, you may be surprised what has changed with 25 weekly updates now under our belt.

As well as new missions, items and bosses, some major changes to core game systems have been made since launch. The biggest change is the removal of Icarus' real-world timer, which sometimes caught players by surprise and left their characters and all their gear stranded on the planet permanently. Missions are now based on time spent in the game, although Icarus is still fundamentally based around time-limited missions and sessions. Other big changes include the hardcore and safe difficulty options, optimizations, more talent points and a separate talent tree for solo play.

Most of these changes are based on your community feedback and the most up-voted requests on our Feature Upvote site, so please continue to give us your feedback there.





While the Styx Map is intended as bonus content for our community, it is not one of our planned major expansions.

RocketWerkz has already begun work on New Frontiers, the first major paid expansion for Icarus, which is due late this year. A second expansion, Dangerous Horizons, is planned for 2023. These major expansions will feature new, more challenging biomes and more mutated or even alien lifeforms and new gameplay challenges. We look forward to sharing more about them in the coming months.

In the meantime we will keep regularly updating the core Icarus game, you can expect a lot of our team resource will be working towards bringing you this exciting next chapter in the growing story you’ve come to love, that is Icarus.





This Sunday 29 May at 10pm UTC / 3pm PDT (that’s 10am Monday morning NZT for us in New Zealand) we’ll be hosting a Styx Dev Stream and AMA with Gamerunner Dean ‘Rocket’ Hall playing the new Styx Map and Missions, while our community manager Shammgod hosts an AMA with various members of our Vision, Art, and Design teams.

You can leave questions in our Discord and our Twitch chat. This is a great chance to ask that burning question about the future of Icarus, what Styx is bringing to the table, or why headshotting a baby goat from 100 meters feels so good. Join us over on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/surviveicarus



New Map

• A new 8x8km map to explore, based around a large central river network.
  

New Missions

VERTIGO: Expedition

• Find and repair lost drilling equipment.
  

MALSTROM: Exploration

ZEPHYR: Expedition

• Scan for new potential drop locations to unlock more missions.
  

OMPHALOS: Survey

GOSSAMER: Research

• Discover more about the worm species native to this planet.
  

CRESCENDO: Survey

• Investigate the Shifting Sands
  

ALCAZAR: Construction

• Setup a Self Sufficient Powered Research Base
  

RICOCHET: Expedition

• Investigate Signs of an Oasis
  

HEADLONG: Exploration

ADAGIO: Exploration

KISMET: Exploration

CAVALCADE: Exploration

DUST: Exploration

HALCYON: Extermination

• Investigate Increased Polar Bear Presence in the area.
  

New Creatures

Adolescent Caveworms - Once they grow beyond their larval stage prevalent in Icarus' caves, they become significantly more dangerous and can venture beyond their subterranean nests.

Kea - Icarus' first avian addition. Colorful in both appearance and character, these mischievously clever parrots will take advantage of any undefended food-store they can get to.

Komodo - Typically distracted by food, these will likely not bother you unless you come between them and their meal. They have a nasty bite that can leave prospectors nauseous at best.

Crocodiles - Ever-present around the water bodies of Icarus, they’re most at home in the water but can still be a notable threat on land. Their thick hide make them resistant to projectiles.

Fixes

• Improved way player loadouts are handled to reduce chance of players losing loadouts/items. Modifying the way players loadouts are granted, the players dropship now controls and stores the state internally of whether or not it has granted the loadout to its inventory, no more passing of items from player. This allows disconnections to occur during the dropship sequence and players will still be able to get their loadout upon reconnecting.
  
• Fixed issue where the player could be considered ‘in a cave’ while still outside the voxel entrance.
  
• Fixed the Drill power quest step incorrectly checking whether the drill was active or not and progressing without the drill having biofuel in, slightly tweaked the worm respawn timer on the second stage of the quest
  
• Fixed the Drill power quest step incorrectly checking whether the drill was active or not and progressing without the drill having biofuel in as previous fix also broke the quest step, both fixed now.
  
• Improved game performance degradation after extended playtime due to AI getting stuck in loops constantly executing expensive GOAP action precondition checks.
  
• Fixed another instance of NPCs getting soft-locked when trying to pick between multiple incomplete actions that caused large performance drops until they died or despawned.
  

This week we have a small update but a big announcement…

Next week, we will be effectively doubling the size of Icarus' playable area with a second 8x8km map, dropping 16 more missions and unleashing several new creatures. And as a thank you for our fans and players, we are giving this DLC pack away to every current Icarus player for free.

The Styx Map and Missions Pack will be a separate DLC pack for all Icarus players available next Friday 27 May (UTC). Read on for a preview of what to expect in Styx, including a sneak peak of the detailed patch notes and missions.

While our team put the finishing touches on Styx’s missions, this week’s regular update includes several bug fixes and optimization improvements, listed in the change log below.



This new territory is centered around a long braided river which the First Cohort of prospectors named Styx, after one the rivers of the underworld.

The 64 square kilometer map effectively doubles the size of Icarus' playable area. While it will feature the familiar forest, arctic and desert biomes, it presents a new network of valleys and pathways to explore over 16 missions. Some of Styx’s missions will even affect the map and unlock pathways to areas, providing permanent shortcuts.

Originally posted by author

This bonus free DLC is our way of saying thank you to our fans and player community. With your support and feedback, Icarus has evolved considerably in the nearly six months since launch. We had a rocky start in many ways, but with 24 weekly updates to date we’ve established a good pace for our additions and have introduced some pretty major changes along the way (such as removing the real-world time limit, rebalancing talent points, solo trees, hardcore mode, difficulty options, more bosses).

So this pack is is free for everyone who has bought the game so far, as a thank you for supporting us through release and the last six months of updates.

- Dean Hall, Game Runner

With the new territory come new creatures, modified by UDA exo-biologists for the volatile climate and atmosphere of Icarus. Here’s a preview of what you may encounter.

[h2]Komodo Dragon
[/h2]


Another alpha on the top of Icarus' food chain, the Komodo Dragon is a foe to not be tangled with, especially when it is eating. Identifiable by its blood-chilling roar, they may try to muscle in and eat your own kills, although they make a good meal themselves if you can penetrate their scaled armor. Beware their jaws as a nasty bite can leave you nauseous.

[h2]Crocodile
[/h2]


The apex predator of the waterways, Crocodiles were successfully released onto Styx, and have taken full control of the braided rivers that dominate this area. While they’re easily mistaken for logs, you’re more at risk of their stealth hunting and their powerful jaws. Their tough, scaly hides make them difficult to take down from range, and even more dangerous to fight in hand-to-teeth combat.

[h2]Kea[/h2]


The first avian addition to Icarus' forests is the Kea Parrot. Colorful in both appearance and character, these mischievously clever parrots will take advantage of any undefended food-store they can get to.


Styx will be available for free with next week’s update on Fri 27 May (UTC).

It will not require any additional downloads or purchase. Everyone who already owns Icarus will automatically see a separate Styx Map & Missions Pack DLC appear in your Steam Library.

In future, Styx may become a paid DLC but for now it is a thank you for our fans. However, don’t confuse Styx with our future plans for two other major expansions, New Frontiers and Dangerous Horizons, which will be paid DLC featuring new biomes and creatures. We’ve already begun work on those.

If you can’t wait and are interested in beta testing Styx, join the experimental branch channel on our Discord community at discord.gg/SurviveIcarus



Version: 1.1.15.96284

• Added separate (and optional) AttachOffset_ADS socket support to allow bows to have an alternate attach offset transform specified to use while aiming down sights. This will allow us to resolve some issues with camera position when aiming with some bows.
  
• Fixed players far away taking explosive damage during Kill Cams by adding a component tag (IgnoreDamage) which lets post process/audio colliders ignore damage detection.
  
• Character Flag in MIGRATING SANDS: Survey is now granted to players as they join the quest so sandworm items can be crafted immediately.
  
• Disabled Caves, Rivers and Lakes from being used for Occlusion culling to improve performance.
  
• Adding metal damage cue for animals hitting metal objects.
  
• Fixing issue where some modifiers where dealing physical damage instead of pure and therefore would be causing unintended armor degradation.
  
• Fixed typo in Titanium Knife description.
  
• Fixed some bushes not having FLOD. This should address issues with them disappearing/reappearing seemingly at random.
  
• Updated Potbelly Stove description and flavor text.
  
• Fixed typo in Kitchen Bench.
  

[h2](Available next week)[/h2]


New Map

• A new 8x8km map to explore, based around a large central river network.
  

New Missions

• VERTIGO: Expedition - Find and repair lost drilling equipment.
  
• MALSTROM: Exploration
  
• ZEPHYR: Expedition - Scan for new potential drop locations to unlock more missions.
  
• OMPHALOS: Survey
  
• GOSSAMER: Research - Discover more about the worm species native to this planet.
  
• RENDEZVOUS: Delivery - Retrieve Biosample and return it to your ship without letting it fall outside optimal temperatures.
  
• CRESCENDO: Survey - Investigate the Shifting Sands
  
• BALLISTIC: Extermination - Investigate the Increased Cougar Presence
  
• ALCAZAR: Construction - Setup a Self Sufficient Powered Research Base
  
• RICOCHET: Expedition - Investigate Signs of an Oasis
  
• HEADLONG: Exploration
  
• ADAGIO: Exploration
  
• KISMET: Exploration
  
• CAVALCADE: Exploration
  
• DUST: Exploration
  
• HALCYON: Extermination - Investigate Increased Polar Bear Presence in the area.
  

New Creatures

• Adolescent Caveworms - Once they grow beyond their larval stage prevalent in Icarus' caves, they become significantly more dangerous and can venture beyond their subterranean nests.
  
• Kea - Icarus' first avian addition. Colorful in both appearance and character, these mischievously clever parrots will take advantage of any undefended food-store they can get to.
  
• Komodo - Typically distracted by food, these will likely not bother you unless you come between them and their meal. They have a nasty bite that can leave prospectors nauseous at best.
  
• Crocodiles - Ever-present around the water bodies of Icarus, they’re most at home in the water but can still be a notable threat on land. Their thick hide make them resistant to projectiles.
  

For Week Twenty Three, the planet is about to receive its biggest threat yet: World Bosses. Roaming around the map, these bosses are an ever-present threat that requires prospectors to be on their toes at all times.

We’re also releasing the next batch of Sandworm Items including Armor and Weapons, and a mission to introduce and exterminate these new roaming bosses.





World Bosses are the first instance of an ‘alpha’ enemy that isn’t restricted to specific prospects and can roam the map, providing a new layer of intensity to every mission. The first to be introduced is the Sandworm. Any mission which includes the desert biome will now include the risk of the Sandworm intruding.

Expect to see the bosses you’ve encountered in other missions gradually encroach on other areas of the map in future weeks. They may surprise you in missions and locations you previously considered safe.

Originally posted by author

'This week is the first big step for some exciting new tech - world bosses can now be found during your missions. Currently this is limited to the Sandworm and in missions which have access to the desert, but keep your eyes peeled when you drop because their numbers seem to be growing.

This system comes with two more additions in the form of a new module in the workshop and a new talent at master rank on the hunting tree, both allowing you to track the location of world bosses on your map. This is valuable as the Sandworms have a habit of not staying in one place for too long. We've also added some more Sandworm items and a new Sandworm Armor set made from its scales, which comes with some handy poison resistance set bonuses.' - Shawn, Game Designer and all-around-nice-guy

Along with this update comes the second batch of Sandworm Items. You’ll now be able to craft Armor, Knives, Spears and Arrows using the scales collected from Sandworms, which are now more plentiful thanks to those roaming Sandworm bosses. With their own unique perks, these items add a distinct variety to the loot pool, such as the reduction to poison damage, reduced poison debuff duration and water consumption buff provided by the armor set, or the poison buff added to the knife, spear and arrows. All of these items will be craftable at the forge and armor benches respectively, and their blueprints unlockable on the tech tree.





To introduce the new bosses, there is a new mission for prospectors to complete. Details are scarce, you’re on your own for this one.

MIGRATING SANDS: Survey

INVESTIGATE AN ANOMALY IN THE DESERT

// OPERATOR: UDA
// BIOME: Desert
// BACKGROUND: General access for all Contractors meeting drop criteria
// MISSION: Contractors are not required to pursue specific objectives
// TERMS: Contractors will be provided with a functioning envirosuit, they will be otherwise unassisted





Version: 1.1.14.95804

• Added New Mission: Roaming Sandworm
  
• Added: New Sandworm Items - Created from the scales of the far more formidable evolution to the Caveworm, the Sandworm Knife, Spear, Bow and Arrow offer a higher durability across the board and are designed to put a stop to any health regeneration on its victims.
  
• Added new Workshop Item: World Boss Module - this will allow you to see World Boss locations on the map.
  
• Added new Talent: Big Game Hunter - this will allow you to see World Boss locations on the map.
  
• Fixed issue where the Extractor wouldn’t snap to a faulty configured deposit in E6.
  
• Fixed issue where extractors continued to run when the extractor was full, deleting resources out of the inventory.
  
• Fixed issue where radars in missions would attract regular wildlife while also attracting the mission spawning wildlife.
  
• Fixed issue where Radar would continue attracting more waves of wildlife after scanning was completed.
  
• Fixed issue where you would get Arctic weather events in the Forest and no weather events in the Arctic.
  
• Fixed the spoil rate of the Ice Box and Refrigerator to no longer be 0, but rather slower than normal, with the Refrigerator being 2x better than the Ice Box.
  
• Improved NPC navigation in lakes and rivers to lower the likelihood of animals walking through them.
  
• Fixed issue where the sickle would not collect any Berries when used on Berry Bushes.
  
• Added increased yield and sickle support for Beans, Cocoa, Coffee, Tea and Gorse Flower Bushes.
  
• Increased maximum potential output for grown crops of Beans, Cocoa, Coffee, Tea and Gorse flower.
  
• Fixed further instances of buildings breaking on reload. Continue to report these if you experience them.
  
• Fixed issue where Aluminium and Coal were not spawning correctly for Deep Mining Deposits.
  
• Fixed issue where you couldn’t CTRL+click objects between the space station inventory and the drop loadout.
  
• Removed 2x Weapon Damage multiplier on Shotguns and instead increased Buckshot Shell damage from 15 to 30 in order to give better clarity on where damage improvements are coming from.
  
• Decreased Hip Accuracy of Worm Bows slightly.
  
• Fixed Caveworm Bow crafting speed being set incorrectly fast.
  
• Modified weapon audio to match volume of real items.
  
• Increased Aim Accuracy of Recurve Bow slightly.
  
• Fixed some instances of prospects not completing to make it retry up to three times. If retrying three times still fails, you can resume the prospect and try again.
  
• Fixed crash that could occur when NPCs eat a corpse that has something like a prime meat or stringy meat drop chance applied to it.
  
• Fixed issue where Prime Meat Accolade wasn’t being completed when collecting Giant Steak, Fatty T Bone, Gamey Meat, Soft Meat, Stringy Meat and White Meat.
  
• Fixed issue where drills and extractors weren’t shutting down when their inventory is full.
  

This week, we’re making some significant changes and improvements to how you discover and extract exotics. Exotic deposit randomization is the most prominent of these, changing how deposits are spawned into the map and adding variety and challenge to your drops.

To complement this change we are improving our Scanning and Extraction systems with Tier 3 and Tier 4 Radars and Extractors, and new Workshop Radars and Extractors for the high-end prospector. This work helps lay further foundations for us to improve the late game experience and the entire exotics loop.

Improving the exotics loop and late game is something we need to approach with a delicate touch, efforts in this direction will be carefully rolled out in updates like this so we can test and adjust our changes as we go. We have many different activities going on, such as balancing work, new content, future DLC plans, optimizations, multiplayer improvements, etc... all at the same time but with different cadences. They don't always line up exactly with our update schedule, so some weeks may be more content focused, other weeks may be more foundational or feature focused.
- Dean Hall, Gamerunner

Previously, exotic matter spawn locations have been fixed and consistent, but this is changing. The location of exotic deposits is now randomized and you’ll have to scan to find them afresh each drop.

Each prospect will have a selection of potential exotic spawning points, but which ones are active will be randomized and different each time you drop on a new prospect. This makes exotics difficult to map and will encourage you to scout and discover, rather than memorizing locations.

We will monitor the impact of this change, as the increase in difficulty requires fine balancing, so keep providing your feedback and experiences to us on Feature Upvote.

Originally posted by author

With a static system, players could learn exactly where deposits are for each prospect and then circumvent a bunch of gameplay loops, bee-lining it straight to the deposits. As a result, we found many players weren't engaging with the radar scanning system to locate deposits, because they already knew where they were.

Now, with Exotics spawning randomly at a number of potential locations, players will need to engage with radar mechanics in order to locate them, which has knock-on effects such as encouraging players to establish a base and get geared up first.

As part of this change, we're also introducing Radars and Extractors to both Tier 3 and the Orbital Workshop. With players now able to bring down Extractors with them at the start of a drop, it was more important than ever that we implemented this feature.

We understand that for the min/max'ers out there this makes obtaining Exotics more difficult, but they were never intended to be easy to get. Those looking to obtain Exotics as quickly as possible may want to invest in the Workshop items as they will let you hit the ground running the fastest but, be aware, with this advanced equipment also comes advanced hostility from the local wildlife. - Adam, Game Designer

We have added new Radars and Extractors at Tier 3 and Tier 4 to replace the existing ones and help you better find and mine those exotic deposits.

Tier 3 Radars + Extractor (Biofuel)

The Tier 3 Radar and Extractor are biofuel powered and provide low-cost, moderate-return systems, with a low chance to attract animal life. Both provide a strong early option for the less advanced prospector with moderate efficiency and accuracy, and a more easily accessible fuel to reduce the investment to deploy.

Tier 4 Radar + Extractor (Electric)

The Tier 4 Radar and Extractor provide a substantial improvement on the Tier 3 alternatives, but require a more advanced fueling system in electricity. In turn, they provide higher scanning speeds and higher precision, but their increased activity is more likely to attract local foes. So keep your wits about you.





The most advanced of the Radar and Extractors added to the pool is the IC-001 Radar and IC-001 Extractor. These are purchasable through the Workshop and will require a new fuel source, IC-001 Prototype Power Source, which is also purchasable alongside them.

Workshop Radar, Extractors + Biofuel

The IC-001 Radar is the most advanced system we have released to date, requiring no energy source and providing the highest precision and speed out of all available options. In turn, it is also the most likely to attract animals, requiring you to be on guard at all times.

The IC-001 Extractor is the most powerful extractor we’ve introduced also, which provides a lot more durability and runs on a very special power source. Its high performance requires a previously unavailable source of energy, available in the Workshop as the ‘IC-001 Prototype Power Source’. This self-sustaining unit can extract up to 600 exotics per prospect but cannot be brought back to the station. Once it is empty, throw it away.

We have also added a ‘MXC Fuel Canister’ as a container which can carry biofuel. It comes prefilled and will refill every time the player returns to orbit if it is brought back.

Note: Existing Radars and Extractors players have on prospects will still work the way they used to, but upon leaving them behind on your prospect they will be gone forever, so enjoy them while they last.





Since you can now bring non-equipable items like Radars and Extractors with you from orbit, we have changed where you will find them when you arrive on planet. Player loadouts now come down in the your dropship inventory not your character's inventory. Don’t worry, you haven’t lost any workshop items, they are just in a different place.





As part of our long-term changes to the back-end architecture, which stores player progress, we have improved the tooling that allows us to support player activities. Specifically, this gives us much easier access to assess and right problems that have occurred due to bugs when playing in online mode. Please contact us if you have lost exotics and need assistance.

This is a very new package of work so we didn't have time for this week to provide a detailed explanation of what it is, and how it works. This will follow in next weeks update.

We will be extensively overhauling our back-end architecture over future updates as we look to improve the game and better support the needs of the community.

• Added Exotics Deposit randomization system so deposits will now be random within a set of possible locations for a given prospect
  
• Added three new Radars and Extractors
  
• Added feature where Extractors & Radars can be damaged and destroyed
  
• Radars while active will now attract animals that will attack it while it is active
  
• Players old extractors will exist in their current state but are not longer craftable
  

Biofuel Radar and Extractor

• Powered by biofuel with the result being it is slower than other versions
  
• Added a new Interactable so players can interact with the biofuel radar in new ways, by directly accessing its inventory
  

Electric Radar and Extractor

• Powered using electricity resulting in them operating at the same speed as previous versions
  

Workshop Radar and Extractor

• The “IC-001 Radar” has an internal power source, and need not currently be powered
  
• The “IC-001 Extractor” requires the “IC-001 Power Source” workshop item to be powered.
  
• Faster than previous versions
  
• Workshop Purchasable MXC Biofuel Can. This item comes pre-filled with Biofuel and can be returned to the Station for free refilling.
  
• Workshop Purchasable IC-001 Power Source item which is used to power the IC-001 Extractor. This item is one-time use and cannot be returned to the Station. Multiple Power Source’s should be brought with you on drops where large amounts of Exotics are expected to be extracted.
  
• Player Loadouts now come down in the players drop ship and not on their person. This was to fix issues with certain items requiring more space than any player could have (multiple Utility slot items, for example)
  
• Added audio for all rustic items crafted on the new rustic decorations bench.
  
• Fixed issue where creature body landing sounds wouldn't play when using a shotgun, due to excess shotgun ammo projectiles interference.
  
• Improved footstep audio priority for creatures to be medium instead of low, giving them a higher chance of playing.
  
• Improved footstep audio events to only play as long as necessary for the sound.
  
• Improved damage audio cues to scale with the intensity of the damage amount.
  
• Improved river audio to address issues where other sounds could cut out when in an area with lots of rivers.
  
• Fixed stone stairs not having correctly named railing sockets, preventing rails from going on the right hand side.
  
• Fixed issue where game browser wouldn’t reflect mission difficulty settings (difficulty, insurance, respawn).