Squirrelmageddon! News

- map tweaks
- fix squirrel death squeek
- added more AI art

The Reaper Graveyard map has been updated with more kit-bashings for 2022. Have fun, grab those candied squirrel giblets and don't forget to trick or treat the Grim Reaper...!



Squirrel masks activated for Halloween!




[h2]THE STARVING AI ARTISTS:[/h2]
As some of you may have noticed, I have been feeding my lore data to a few AI artists and getting back some crazy and cool images...



The process is pretty neat. I create a 'seed scene' image and feed it into the AI mind. I also add in a few keywords to 'push' the AI brain to look for art resources, techniques, tropes and colors upon which to build the resulting image.

For some fun, I fed the AI a photo of Mötley Crüe with the keywords 'war monger army of squirrels' and it spat out this:



ROFL... I particularly like the squirrel helmet.

So it took me about 10 hours to produce 20 images I actually wanted to use for the loading screen slides.

Here's one of a chipped squirrel with the glider backpack.



There are 19 more in the loading screens. I plan to rework the mission data structures to include mission related images ASAP!

Can't wait to see what comes out of 'dead techies crammed into a ventilation shaft'...

Stay squirrely and have fun!

Quick patch:
- FIX: projectile effects replication multiplayer
- FIX: Brethren Squirrel crash scenario where 3 brethren stuck close together were discharging in infinite loop

- NEW: footstep and bullet hit sounds based on materials such as wood, metal, dirt, concrete, water, plastic. I have lots to do still and some 'hit' sound effects will probably be wrong. Clean up patch coming soon!

A lot happening over the last couple of weeks... some much needed house keeping and UI / UX improvements as well as CUSTOMIZABLE CONTROLS.

It has been a long time coming, and I have finally been able to add customizable inputs for almost all actions in the game.



[h2]v1.07.334 - Highlights[/h2]

• CONTROLS: set custom keys for actions, weapons, movement and ui!
  
• CONTROLS: enable / disable mouse smoothing!
  
• UI LOBBY: menu and multiplayer chat borders and other tweaks
  
• UI CHARACTER SELECT: skills and suit mods now show under the character description
  
• UI GAME OVER SCREEN: inventory of scavenged items shown
  
• UI GAME OVER SCREEN: objectives completed moved
  
• UI MULTIPLAYER: borders for selections screen content and smaller font
  
• CRASH FIX: the new Brethren plasma squirrel would crash the client after Game Over when all targets were invalid and a turret was making it discharge... code logic fixed.
  
• TURRET TWEAKS: the turrets now use the same projectiles as player weapons.
  
• TURRET TWEAKS: Turret accuracy improved.
  

[h2]MULTIPLAYER - STATE OF THE SQUIRREL[/h2]

A lot of actor and object replication optimizations and fixes. Dead squirrel trajectory replication is still an issue, but will hopefully have a reliable fix soon!

• FIX: in-game and game over mission objective replication
  
• FIX: stuck player spawn fix (collision issue)
  
• FIX: speedy yellow carcass spawn replication fix
  

Known Issues / working on:

Still rubber banding on large maps and poor connections (LAN is always best). Server 'spikes' happening under certain high intensity squirrel fights with turrets and explosions and mines and fan traps all going off at once.

I am tinkering with priority settings and seeing what else I can do. Further optimization of the squirrel brain should also help take the load off the host machine.

• HUD Messaging replication (mission complete message)
  
• pickup inventory replication
  
• client weapon hit effect replication (should not be to hard to fix)
  
• large map rubber banding (host load - needs dedicated server / smaller maps)
  

[h2]MULTIPLAYER MERCHANTS ARE BACK![/h2]
I have enabled hive to access merchants again. There were a few crash bugs before, so hopefully things are working well now! Please report any game breakers in the Steam Forum - it is much appreciated!



[h2]CURRENT FOCUS[/h2]

• Map reworks and optimizations (reduce size / more map variety)
  
• More UI improvements and UI work
  
• Multiplayer optimizations and more maps
  
• Multiplayer squirrel advancement (every death levels up squirrel)
  
• Multiplayer 'score sharing' for large squirrel kills and mission completions
  

Stay squirrely!

Sorry bout the urgent re-patch!