Early Access Update V0.8.9.4

AI, Combat & Difficulty

Improved enemy aim interaction with foliage: bushes now partially obscure enemy aim even when in front of you (not only when you’re inside them), while bullets can still pass through foliage.
Balanced enemy rate-of-fire on certain enemies that were firing too frequently due to framerate.
Various enemy cover-finding algorithm tweaks.
Increased poacher pursuit speed.
Fixed cover-finding breaking when a previously-used cover object was destroyed.
Improved enemy coordination: better at communicating your position, and better at resetting back to patrol when they lose you or give up searching.
Slightly increased enemy count in Chapter 2 (prior to the ending where only 5 enemies spawn per new day).
Enemies now respond to the tranquilizer rifle like the sniper rifle: after seeing an ally downed and detecting ranged play, they adapt to engage from farther away instead of running into the open.
Enemies now actively avoid standing directly next to fallen teammates to prevent tactical exploits (and reduce unnatural body pileups).

Weapons & Player Equipment

Animations & Ragdolls

Added 4 more unique enemy death animations (10 total, selected randomly on death).
Improved quality of enemy death animation → ragdoll transition.
Removed all unused death animations from enemy animation state machines (memory optimization).
Fixed wobbly enemy walking caused by foot IK being enabled when it didn’t need to be.

Stealth & Foliage Systems

Optimized stealth foliage trigger collision matrix.
Fixed stealth bug where the “Hidden” label could appear in foliage while not crouched (caused by driving through stealth foliage zones and exiting a vehicle).
Balanced leaf-rustling audio while moving through bushes (less loud).

World, Lighting, Weather & Time

Increased day/night cycle length.
Fixed time not progressing correctly when sleeping for one hour.
Improved weather manager: storm wind now interpolates more gradually, and returns to normal once rain stops.
Increased moonlight brightness for better night visibility without lantern/flashlight.
Made daylight ever so slightly brighter for a more vivid aesthetic.
Greatly increased cloud resolution for higher quality sky visuals.
Improved appearance of water at the base of waterfalls.

Environment, Textures & Visual Polish

Increased terrain ground texture resolution by more than double via tiling (no texture memory/performance impact). Improved terrain distance-blending to reduce distant tiling and better blend into the horizon.
Added extremely high quality detail to rock textures (especially up close).
Improved destroyed helicopter model textures/materials.
Improved Diesel Generator texture mapping and other scratched metal objects.
Improved ostrich detail normal maps when up close / when used as a vehicle.
Improved poacher leader outfit materials.
Added general polish to shebeen/tavern interior.
Adjusted gameplay/polish in the nighttime camping interlude.
Added general environment polish to helicopter/dehorning interlude #2.
Removed ugly giant grass meshes from Mission 3 poacher camp and a few other locations.
Removed duplicate overlapping foliage items leftover from previous builds, and removed redundant ones.
Decreased likelihood of camera clipping through objects when moving up close.
Added a stronger drop-shadow to subtitles for improved legibility.

Missions, Navmesh & Level Fixes

Fixed navmesh issue in Mission 5 that could cause enemies to walk through warehouse models.
Bullets can now pass through fences; also fixed enemies spawning behind a fence they couldn’t get past in Mission 3.
Fixed navmesh issue allowing enemies to walk through the drone charging station in Mission 3.
Fixed issue allowing the player to walk through drone charging station meshes.
Fixed bug allowing you to walk through your vehicle during tutorial phase 2.
Fixed terrain optimization volume near Mission 3 that caused low quality tree LODs to show too soon near the Mission 3 Wave 1 poacher camp.
Fixed culling issue with the groundskeeper model in the tutorial (phase 2) that could make her head disappear when the player got too close.

Audio & Narrative Presentation

Further improved audibility of conversations between poachers while they raid your camp.
Stealth/Aggression tutorial radio transmission now triggers sooner when approaching the first poacher camp via the road (vs climbing the hill and approaching from the side).

Other

Various other improvements (including spoiler-sensitive changes), plus general optimizations and internal fixes.
Scorpions are no longer invincible.