Surviving the Abyss News

Hey everyone! We're currently well into development of our next major update, and we're just about ready to start sharing some details!

Firstly I want to mention that an early version of this update will be live on the unstable branch towards the end of next week. (Find out how to access this branch here): https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1254320/view/3889484725164327666

Pending our testing we hope to put it live on the main branch soon after.

[h2]The update:[/h2]
Our key areas of focus are:

[h2]Genomes, and creating the genetic sequence:[/h2]
The next phase of our Cloning updates. We are significantly changing the creation of the genetic sequence to improve the feeling of splicing genomes together for new effects.
Genome collection is streamlined, you now only need access to a genome and can use it permanently (unless the habitat is destroyed or depleted) and do not need to stockpile genomes.
New effects for combinations of genomes are also included along with QoL changes to cloning.
The cloning interface has also undergone significant changes to support the new features.



[h2]New type of Clones:[/h2]
Basic Clones are now the first type you will encounter, these clones are far more imperfect and can only undertake menial roles on the base. This update feeds into our updates to the game pacing and progression changes.

[h2]The Anomaly:[/h2]
Signifigant changes to the Anomaly. includes changes to pacing of the game, the point at which the anomaly appears and how it interacts with the Player in the early and late game. We'll give a little more detail on this alongside the update releasing!



[h2]Game Pacing / Staging:[/h2]
We're putting focus on the games pacing and the players journey through different biomes towards the late game. Biomes have been tweaked to push the player into more exploration and encourage exploring new biomes to access important resources.

[h2]New Buildings:[/h2]
Automation Module: Can replace the labour or Basic Clones.
Tidal Generator: Provides signifigant power output with no fuel cost, but only available within the Kelp Forest Biome.
Bio Generator (O2): Provides signifigant oxygen output with no fuel cost, but only available within the Coral Reefs Biome.




Continued user experience and quality of life updates, changes to events, changes to crew Malnutrition and Respiratory Problems and more!

---------
We'll put out a more detailed change-log at the same time as putting these updates live on the experimental branch, and really look forward to any feedback you have!

Hey folks!

Today's update fixes another few issues raised over the holidays. We're now hard at work on the next major update, we'll be talking more about this on our Discord very soon!

[h3]Bug Fixes:[/h3]

- Fix for error when building oil wells in some circumstances
- Updated Advanced Air Purifier Footprint
- Advanced Air Purifier Power Usage description is now correct
- Minor UI fixes

[h3]Performance:[/h3]

- Performance improvements for Status Tags

Hi everyone! Today's update fixes a couple of small issues introduced with the latest patch.

Bug Fixes:

• On load Advanced Air Purifiers now reload correctly.
  
• Marine Stabilisers now correctly affect Rosefish populations.
  
• Remove all modules when parent building is destroyed.
  

Hi folks, today we're pushing our latest major update live!
This update covers new features, user experience, bugs, new buildings and more. Look out for major updates on cloning plus our new crew aggression / prison system which is covered in more detail below.

We have a lot more planned for the future, but for now we at Rocket Flair wish everyone a happy holiday season, we're looking forward to all that'll come in new year!

------------------

[h2]Changelog:[/h2]

Feature: Cloning & Cloning Modules

• Multiple cloning labs can now operate independently. Can navigate between cloning labs in the cloning UI.
  
• Added cloning lifespan module, increases attached cloning lab lifespans by 50%.
  
• Added cloning uses module, increases the maximum number of clones that can be produced in a lab in a single batch.
  
• Added cloning slots module, increases the number of genome slots available in the cloning lab.
  
• Cloning now has 2 mutation effects: Lifespan & Aggression.
  

Feature: Aggression and Prisons

• Added An Aggression Mutation System
  
• Genomes have an aggression impact value that will give crew a chance to become aggressive
  
• An aggression manager will check for these each day and turn some aggressive.
  
• Aggressive Crew will cause injury to others around them based on the percentage of crew that are aggressive.
  
• Added A Brig / Prison building
  
• The Brig is used to sentence crew to jail time.
  
• A sentence has a chance to cure crew of aggression based on the length of sentence and crew lifespan.
  
• Aggressive crew leads to incidents on the base which appear as emergent events.
  

New Buildings:

• Added new advanced Air Purifier building, tier 2 tech tree unlock.
  
• Added Brig building.
  
• Added Cloning Module: Uses.
  
• Added Cloning Module: Lifespan.
  
• Added Cloning Module: Slot.
  

Save/Load:

• Fixed save / load issue with impact extractors, prevented some files from loading.
  
• Fixed Issues Arising from Saving During Threat Attack.
  
• Fixed Marine Restorator module stopping working after load.
  

Misc UX:

• Activated specific invalid placement messages for various placement issues, such as placing in darkness, or placing a cloning lab module not attached to a cloning lab.
  
• Refactored how the tooltip on event choice buttons displays the event outcomes to the player. Crew relations effects are displayed as -, --, --- or +, ++, +++
  
• Changed air quality display in the o2 tooltip on the top HUD to say the correct names "Unsafe Air Quality" & "Dangerous Air Quality"
  
• Mission Reward alerts UI slightly changed, title text sizes updated to match one another.
  
• Rewards now also display on the outcome messages for any events that have them.
  
• In the event full screen: replaced the header that says "message" with "SENDER: SENDERNAME".
  
• when you hover crew in building slots, the crew hover panel now correctly displays lifespan for crew who have infinite lifespan as N/A
  
• Fixed a bug where time would restart after using any menu even if left in paused mode
  
• Clicking a pinned mission on the HUD will now open the mission log on that mission.
  
• Increased the height of door preview (dotted blue line) so it does not clip through terrain.
  

Emergent Events:

• Made early game start 10% faster and emergent events take 5% less time before checking for another to activate
  
• Added O2Improvement event, made it's positive outcome a 10% permanent increase to basic o2 gen output.
  

Point of Interest (POI) Events:

• Added outcome events for all POI's and new text to match. Updated text for all POI events.
  
• Added tech tree breakthrough outcomes - halves the tech tree cost of any item that receives a breakthrough (currently only given as a reward for the Oil Rig POI exploration success).
  
• Updated event outcomes for: Sunken Sub, Giant Coral, Giant Clam, Oil Rig, Sunken Plane.
  
• Fixing bug where sub getting destroyed due to mission failure was returning the sub resources to the player.
  

Other Events:

• Added new event chain and event trigger that fires when the player gets malnourished crew. Describes how to overcome malnourishment.
  
• Added tutorial step for cloning modules.
  
• Added Power Generator permanent power increase & fuel efficiency permanent increase outcomes for certain emergent events.
  
• Updated superconductor event to give permanent +10% power to coal gens if copper is provided.
  

Vehicle Manufacturing:

• Vehicle manufacturing buildings now operate independently and can produce simultaneously.
  

Misc Visual:

• Hid shadow on the light tower so it doesn't appear as it turns on.
  
• Added new school of rosefish.
  
• Increased the intensity of the crew shader (yellow shader that displays the crew).
  
• Fixed bug where crew lens would remain active after closing crew lens.
  
• Fixed a bug where selecting a second building while one is already selected causes the crew from the original building to remain visible.
  
• Fixed toggling the crew lens would remove all crew highlights even if the building was still selected.
  
• Fixing issue where destroying residential buildings would cause crew to stay highlighted.
  

Misc Bugfixing:

• Fixed: when an emergent event tag appears on a building that already has an objective tag, when it auto fires, it will force fire the objective tag instead of the emergent event tag.
  
• New error handling for crew load, prevents critical failures on crew workplace assignment on load and logs the issue.
  
• Changed tech tree power output increase and coal efficiency increase to be cumulative (need to do this for all similar effects)
  
• Added Fully functional check on dock, will not allow crew transport until fully constructed.
  

Crew / Crew Navigation:

• Fixed Bugs that would arise from crew not being able to reach destination
  
• Fixed Destroying Submarine with crew inside deleting crew.
  
• Fixed Destroying Docks causing UI breaking and crew objects never making it to their target location.
  
• Fixed a critical bug where navigation would break if home dock is destroyed.
  
• Fixed bug where unassigning many crew could end up causing the building to be unable to get crew auto assigned.
  
• Fixed error when hub reached holding capacity after 200 crew.
  
• Malnourish crew sorting priority update: Crew now eat in order of Hunger > Malnourishment, Malnourished crew will take priority on High Quality food if no crew are starving.
  
• 
  

Resource Collection:

• Fixed mining subs destroying resources if stockpile is full when they return.
  

UI:

• Removed the elastic behaviour on the scroll view on the building construction menu.
  
• Added the ability to unpin messages from the message log page.
  
• Clicking 'Crew In Darkness' critical tag now takes player to the specific crew member.
  
• Fixing drop down menus causing POI icons to display on top of any drop down menu.
  
• Updated scroll speed for scenario editor.
  
• Adding tooltip to the Efficiency area of selected building UI.
  
• Clicking the Hub icon (which appears when you are far away from central hub) takes you back to the central hub.
  
• Fixed the crew management panel not appearing when you click the crew item in the top HUD.
  
• Added tooltip to cancel clone batch button.
  
• 
  

Balancing:

• Cloning Lab power usage decreased from 8 > 6.
  
• Increased a variety of mid and late game tech tree costs as per new design.
  
• Rebalance starting crew and starting power / o2 to reduce the initial period of the game where all resources need to be allocated to essentials (O2/Power/Food).
  
• Updated Coal Extraction Point to now deplete similar to other resources and extract at 1/4 rate once depleted.
  

Audio:

• Updated hover and click audio to feel more like interacting with an old computer interface.
  

Hi everyone! Today we're pushing an early version of the next update live to a new unstable branch on Steam.



To access this branch, you can take the following steps:

1. Fully exit and relaunch Steam (you should be prompted to log in again) if it is already open.
   
2. Right click Surviving the Abyss in your Steam Library and select the Properties Window.
   
3. Navigate to the Betas tab within the Properties Window.
   
4. Enter 'unstabletesting' in the text box and click 'Check Code'
   
5. Select the Unstable branch in the 'Beta Parcipitation' dropdown.
   
6. Ensure the name of the game in your steam library is now followed by 'Unstable'
   

Important notes:

• You may need to fully exit and restart Steam to ensure it updates. You should see the game download and update the new files once you have switched branch.
  
• Make sure to change back to the normal branch if you want to play a more stable version of the game again.
  
• This branch is unstable and may introduce new bugs, broken save files and unbalanced changes.
  

----------------------------

We're still working hard on the update, we're intending to release this fully at the end of next week. We'll be taking any feedback and bug reports into account over the next week as we finalise and prepare for this release!

----------------------------



Feature: Cloning & Cloning Modules

• Multiple cloning labs can now operate independant. Can navigate between cloning labs in the cloning UI.
  
• Added cloning lifespan module, increases attached cloning lab lifespans by 50%.
  
• Added cloning uses module, increases the maximum number of clones that can be produced in a lab in a single batch.
  
• Added cloning slots module, increases the number of genome slots available in the cloning lab.
  
• Cloning now has 2 mutation effects: Lifespan & Aggression.
  

Feature: Aggression and Prisons

• Added An Aggression Mutation System
  
• Genomes have an aggression impact value that will give crew a chance to become aggressive
  
• An aggression manager will check for these each day and turn some aggressive.
  
• Aggressive Crew will cause injury to others around them based on the percentage of crew that are aggressive.
  
• Added A Brig / Prison building
  
• The Brig is used to sentence crew to jail time.
  
• A sentence has a chance to cure crew of aggression based on the length of sentence and crew lifespan.
  
• Aggressive crew leads to incidents on the base which appear as emergent events.
  

New Buildings:

• Added new advanced Air Purifier building, tier 2 tech tree unlock - Model to be added.
  
• Added Brig building - Model to be added.
  

Save/Load:

• Fixed save / load issue with impact extractors, prevented some files from loading.
  
• Fixed Issues Arising from Saving During Threat Attack.
  
• Fixed Marine Restorator module stopping working after load.
  

Misc UX:

• Activated specific invalid placement messages for various placement issues, such as placing in darkness, or placing a cloning lab module not attached to a cloning lab.
  
• Refactored how the tooltip on event choice buttons displays the event outcomes to the player. Crew relations effects are displayed as -, --, --- or +, ++, +++
  
• Changed air quality display in the o2 tooltip on the top HUD to say the correct names "Unsafe Air Quality" & "Dangerous Air Quality"
  
• Mission Reward alerts UI slightly changed, title text sizes updated to match one another.
  
• Rewards now also display on the outcome messages for any events that have them.
  
• In the event full screen: replaced the header that says "message" with "SENDER: SENDERNAME".
  
• when you hover crew in building slots, the crew hover panel now correctly displays lifespan for crew who have infinite lifespan as N/A
  
• Fixed a bug where time would restart after using any menu even if left in paused mode
  
• Clicking a pinned mission on the HUD will now open the mission log on that mission.
  
• Increased the height of door preview (dotted blue line) so it does not clip through terrain.
  

Emergent Events:

• Made early game start 10% faster and emergent events take 5% less time before checking for another to activate
  
• Added O2Improvement event, made it's positive outcome a 10% permanent increase to basic o2 gen output.
  

Point of Interest (POI) Events:

• Added outcome events for all POI's and new text to match. Updated text for all POI events.
  
• Added tech tree breakthrough outcomes - halves the tech tree cost of any item that receives a breakthrough (currently only given as a reward for the Oil Rig POI exploration success).
  
• Updated event outcomes for: Sunken Sub, Giant Coral, Giant Clam, Oil Rig, Sunken Plane.
  
• Fixing bug where sub getting destroyed due to mission failure was returning the sub resources to the player.
  

Other Events:

• Added new event chain and event trigger that fires when the player gets malnourished crew. Describes how to overcome malnourishment.
  
• Added tutorial step for cloning modules.
  
• Added Power Generator permanent power increase & fuel efficiency permanent increase outcomes for certain emergent events.
  
• Updated superconductor event to give permanent +10% power to coal gens if copper is provided.
  

Vehicle Manufacturing:

• Vehicle manufacturing buildings now operate independently and can produce simultaneously.
  

Misc Visual:

• Hid shadow on the light tower so it doesn't appear as it turns on.
  
• Added new school of rosefish.
  
• Increased the intensity of the crew shader (yellow shader that displays the crew).
  
• Fixed bug where crew lens would remain active after closing crew lens.
  
• Fixed a bug where selecting a second building while one is already selected causes the crew from the original building to remain visible.
  
• Fixed toggling the crew lens would remove all crew highlights even if the building was still selected.
  
• Fixing issue where destroying residential buildings would cause crew to stay highlighted.
  

Misc Bugfixing:

• Fixed: when an emergent event tag appears on a building that already has an objective tag, when it auto fires, it will force fire the objective tag instead of the emergent event tag.
  
• New error handling for crew load, prevents critical failures on crew workplace assignment on load and logs the issue.
  
• Changed tech tree power output increase and coal efficiency increase to be cumulative (need to do this for all similar effects)
  
• Added Fully functional check on dock, will not allow crew transport until fully constructed.
  

Crew / Crew Navigation:

• Fixed Bugs that would arise from crew not being able to reach destination
  
• Fixed Destroying Submarine with crew inside deleting crew.
  
• Fixed Destroying Docks causing UI breaking and crew objects never making it to their target location.
  
• Fixed a critical bug where navigation would break if home dock is destroyed.
  
• Fixed bug where unassigning many crew could end up causing the building to be unable to get crew auto assigned.
  
• Fixed error when hub reached holding capacity after 200 crew.
  
• Malnourish crew sorting priority update: Crew now eat in order of Hunger > Malnourishment, Malnourished crew will take priority on High Quality food if no crew are starving.
  

Resource Collection:

• Fixed mining subs destroying resources if stockpile is full when they return.
  

UI:

• Removed the elastic behaviour on the scroll view on the building construction menu.
  
• Added the ability to unpin messages from the message log page.
  
• Clicking 'Crew In Darkness' critical tag now takes player to the specific crew member.
  
• Fixing drop down menus causing POI icons to display on top of any drop down menu.
  
• Updated scroll speed for scenario editor.
  
• Adding tooltip to the Efficiency area of selected building UI.
  
• Clicking the Hub icon (which appears when you are far away from central hub) takes you back to the central hub.
  
• Fixed the crew management panel not appearing when you click the crew item in the top HUD.
  
• Added tooltip to cancel clone batch button.
  

Balancing:

• Cloning Lab power usage decreased from 8 > 6.
  
• Increased a variety of mid and late game tech tree costs as per new design.
  
• Rebalance starting crew and starting power / o2 to reduce the initial period of the game where all resources need to be allocated to essentials (O2/Power/Food).
  
• Updated Coal Extraction Point to now deplete similar to other resources and extract at 1/4 rate once depleted.
  

Audio:

• Updated hover and click audio to feel more like interacting with an old computer interface.