Early Access Update V0.8.7.8

A small update to kick off the festive season, focusing on environment and wildlife with other regular maintenance updates.

[h2]Main Features:[/h2]

• 5 New animals.
  
• 7 New locations.
  
• Population of animals increased.
  
• Detail of outskirt environments has increased.
  
• New seamless sunset transitions.
  
• Various game performance optimizations.
  
• Various bug fixes.
  
• Various other improvements, listed below.
  
• Environment improvements and detailing.
  
• Improved vegetation and terrain texture painting.
  
• General visual enhancements.
  
• Many new models and items.
  

[h2]New Wildlife:[/h2]

• Buffalo: Are mostly docile but are known to kill humans. Comes in two varieties, clean and dirty - the dirtier the buffalo the more flies it will attract.
  
• Warthogs: Unendangered, relatively harmless, numerous.
  
• African Wild Dog (Lycaon pictus): Not known to attack humans, but a fearless predator amongst its peers.
  
• Scorpions: Good thing you're wearing those boots!
  
• Geese: Known to chase people up trees.
  

[h2]New Locations:[/h2]

• Reserve Entrance: The reserve now has its own actual entrance gate which visitors and guests would use to enter.
  
• Groundskeepers Cabin: The groundskeeper now has her own cabin and garden, this area will be further expanded on in other updates.
  
• Chicken Truck: Is now available at anytime in the game for the achievement mission, as opposed to only in chapter 2.
  
• 4 x Warthog Zones: containing additional detail.
  
• 5 x Buffalo Zones: containing additional detail.
  
• Forest Zones: shadowy biomes.
  
• Other new hidden areas and secrets.

[h2]Fixes:[/h2]

• Fixed issue with enemies firing before they finished reloading
  
• Numerous small other bug fixes and improvements.
  
• Reduced terrain flickering.
  
• Fixed some broken terrain seams.
  
• Fixed some areas you could get stuck.
  
• Fixed some skinned mesh renderers/animals/characters disappearing when halfway off the edge of the screen.
  

[h2]Improvements/Additions:[/h2]

• Increased likelihood of certain enemy bark audio.
  
• Removed trees that were placed on slopes unrealistically.
  
• New vegetation such as mushrooms and tomato plants.
  
• Improved Gazelle Texture.
  
• Improved warehouse exterior model material and texture.
  
• Improved other small building[s] material lighting.
  
• Improved intensity of "Sun Shafts" effect appearance, but can also be disabled from advanced graphics menu if not desired.
  
• Sunset transitions are now seamless when playing on high environment settings.
  
• Improved color quality and synchronization of distance fog at the base of mountains.
  
• Decreased the monotony of certain tree clusters outside of the main reserve.
  
• Improved the blending quality of certain asynchronous streaming zones.
  
• Improved quality of transition from terrain to distant mountain objects.
  
• Improved quality of waterfall rendering during night time.
  

[h2]Optimizations:[/h2]

• Implemented animation hashing for enemy reload action.
  
• Limited the amount of "miss" bullet decals that enemies can produce globally.
  
• Improved culling of bird flocks when not in camp.
  
• Improved culling of enemies when player is exploring outskirts far away from enemies.
  
• Removed more trees hidden under rocks.
  
• Improved cleanup of animals that have become invisible.
  
• Improved culling of animals and meshes inside the main camp while the player is out exploring.
  
• Removed trees growing under rocks that weren't visible using precious resources for nothing.
  
• Numerous other internal performance optimizations.
  
• 'Environment Quality' setting now affects the ambient lighting interval for time of day transitions.
  

[h3]This update now brings the total count of species in the reserve to 34.
The list of all creatures is below:[/h3]

Mammals:

• Rhino
  
• Zebra
  
• Elephant
  
• Giraffe
  
• Wildebeest
  
• Buffalo
  
• Warthog
  
• Wild Dog
  
• Gazelle
  
• Hippo
  
• Ostrich
  
• Goat
  
• Rat
  

Insects:

• Dragonfly
  
• Dung Beetle
  
• Rhino Beetle
  
• Common Fly
  
• Hornet
  
• Scorpion
  
• Snail
  

Amphibians/Reptiles

• Crocodile
  
• Salamander
  
• Frog
  
• Snake
  

Birds:

• Pigeon (bos duiwe)
  
• Crow (Swartkraai)
  
• Owl
  
• Sparrow
  
• Chicken
  
• Duck
  
• Goose
  

More species & locations to be added soon!

As always, thank you everybody for the continued support, encouragement & bug testing. It is greatly appreciated!

Happy Hunting and Happy Holidays.