Dysterra News

Hello survivors!

Many of you may have tried out the housing protection feature we added in our last update. The housing protection feature we put out last week wasn’t the full vision of what we initially planned, so we’re putting the last of our planned features in this week.

We’re actively listening to your feedback and are planning to modify housing protection to better suit player needs, but we wanted to push out the last of our initial design first. I’m hoping to start making some initial balancing changes next week with our major update.



We’ve only made 2 modifications to housing protection:
[h2]📒 It won’t start immediately[/h2]
We’ve added a 5 minute grace period between pressing the “start protection” button and the protection effect going into effect. Anyone looking at the base in question will clearly know that the button has been pressed and that they’ve got 5 minutes to finish up what they’re doing and get out.

[h2]📒 Notification of Base Protection Status[/h2]
Lastly, we’ll let you know in-game when the status changes in the following four ways.

First, to let you know that protection will begin soon(not right away).
Second, when protection begins.
Third, when the cooldown begins.
And fourth, when protection is available again.

Remember that if you are registered to a core, you’ll also be notified when your friend does any of the above.

We’re saving all of our other exciting changes for our major update next week. Keep your eyes peeled for news about the transition from Season 1 into Season 2.

See you soon!
-Director K

[OFFICIAL DYSTERRA COMMUNITY CHANNELS] 🔗 Steam Community Forum 🔗 Discord 🔗 YouTube 🔗 Twitter 🔗 Facebook 🔗 Twitch

Greetings from Orbis!

Woah!! It’s been almost 2 months since we released into early access. It was a rough start with all of the hackers, cheaters, and server issues, but we’ve ironed all of that out now, and are looking to start fresh with Season 2: Forgotten Ruins!!!

Season 2 will be bringing with it quite a few changes. You’ll be getting two new underground areas to explore, new Hyena NPCs, and even new mutant NPCs. We’re also doing our first total rankings reset, as well as including a lot of smaller improvements that we can dig into later.

[h2]The Bunker[/h2]

The first underground area is a free-for-all space where you will very likely run into other players. If you go deep enough, you’ll run into new mutants that may just end your exploration if you’re not careful. There are entrances all around the map, so you’ll never have to look far to find a way in. Once you’re in, however, you can’t turn back around and run away. You’ll need to find the exit if you want to keep all of your stuff, so be careful.

[h2]The Hyena Den[/h2]

The second underground area is a private instance where you won’t run into anyone else. You can test your mettle against new Hyena bosses, and improve your gear when you’re done with all the new loot you picked up. Like the Bunker, you’ll have to go through it and find the exit if you want to live to tell the tale of your bravery.

[h2]Release Date?[/h2]
We’re aiming for February 1st or 2nd(Wednesday or Thursday) as the release date, so keep your eyes peeled for the official release notice on our Discord news channel.

[h2]What about existing servers?[/h2]
We’re still working out the nitty gritty about how we’ll be applying the update to worlds that are still in-progress. We’ll post the specifics about our plans regarding updating servers next week. But I can tell you now that we’re planning to open PvP, PvE, and hardcore servers for each region, so you won’t have to wait to test out the new content.

[h2]What about my ranking?[/h2]

We’re figuring out a way to keep rankings from past seasons visible. I’ll let you know once it’s we’ve officially decided on how we’ll do that.


That was a lot to cover, but I wanted to keep it short and simple.
You can @mention the devs in our discord channel (ex: @Dev_Armond) if there’s something you don’t understand about the update. This is our first time doing a major update, so we’re welcome to constructive feedback.

See you next week!
- Director K

[OFFICIAL DYSTERRA COMMUNITY CHANNELS] 🔗 Steam Community Forum 🔗 Discord 🔗 YouTube 🔗 Twitter 🔗 Facebook 🔗 Twitch

[h3]Our maintenance was completed earlier than the scheduled maintenance end time. You can join the game now!🤩[/h3]
[hr][/hr]
[h2]📢Maintenance Guide📢[/h2]
We will be proceeding with server maintenance soon. Maintenance will last for 2 hours.
The duration of the maintenance may be shortened or extended.

[h3]PST: Jan 19th, 01:30 - 03:30
CET: Jan 19th, 10:30 - 12:30
KST: Jan 19th, 18:30 - 20:30[/h3]

Please make sure to move your character to a safer place before the maintenance.
Your character will fall asleep at that specific location when the maintenance starts.

🔧Balance🔧
1) Added New feature
    - Base protection
        * When activating Base Protection the base structure and installations will not going to be damaged except the Mine, Turret, Electric floor and electric fences. 
        * The Base Protection sustains maximum 24 hrs and minimum as 3 hrs
            └ The more blocks and installations used in the base the less protection time will be.
        * The Cooldown time for base protection requires 6 hrs
        * The base with base protection activated will show special shimmerling patterns.
        * The Base protection feature will act by building cores.
2) Adjust on the maximum skill level of the machine arm skill 87 → 84

🔧ETC🔧
1) Added new server
    - Due to the end of the No raid Test server's end, the normal PVP-1 at North America will be added again.
        * New Server
            └ North America PvP -1

🔧UI🔧
1)Chat
    - Added recent private chat user name list
    - Added block survivor chat feature
        * Message, Team invitation, Admin invitation

🔧Fixed Bugs🔧
1) Fixed an issue where the triangle ceiling broken down while being sustained by two walls.
2) Fixed an issue that Hyena base located at X1069, Y1042 does not have their marker in the map.
3) Fixed an issue that melee weapon decals attached at mounts showing as wooden material decals.

We'll come back with a more stabilized and better gameplay environment after the maintenance.

Thank you, survivors!

Greetings from Orbis!

How have you all been? It’s been a chilly week here in South Korea. The patches this week and next will be small since we’re getting closer to our big February update, but you’ll still like the quality of life improvements we’re adding to the game this week.

This time around we’re adding off-line base protection, as well as some improvements to in-game chat.

[h2]📒 New Base Protection Feature[/h2]
Dysterra was built around the concept of raiding. Breaking down the walls to someone else’s base is thrilling, and often profitable. We’ve realized that new players, as well as casual players, struggle with being raided while they’re offline and having to start over from scratch.



That’s why this week we’re adding a “Base Protection” ability to your building core. Activating it will render your base invincible for a limited time depending on the complexity of your build. For example, if you have a dozen furnaces surrounded by level three walls and foundations with turrets and landmines outside, you might only have the ability to protect your base for as short as 3 hours. On the other hand, if you follow the tutorial, and have nothing but a building core inside your brand new base, it will be invincible for as long as 24 hours.

You’ll be able to tell something is protected when it is shimmering with the pattern in the video below.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

We wanted to make sure this feature isn’t overpowered, so we’ve added some conditions that I hope will be good enough for most survivors. Let us know on Discord if it needs rebalancing.

The catch:
1. Anything powered by a repeater, or that can damage other players may be damaged while your base is protected. (i.e. Mines, turrets, electric floors, and fences can be damaged.)
2. The time remaining for the protection effect will be displayed to other players if they examine part of your build.
3. There’s a cool time of 6 hours(IRL time), regardless of how long your base is protected.
4. Your cooldown time begins if you deactivate it, and you can’t reactivate it until the 6 hours have passed.


[h2]📒 Chat Features[/h2]
We’ve added two new features to chat.

The first is a list of recent private chat usernames. Communication is a key part of teamwork, and we hope this makes it easier to keep in touch with your friends… and enemies.



We’re still polishing it, but we decided to put it in now and continue updating it as we go. You can see previous private chat partners by pressing the UP or DOWN arrow on your keyboard. Then you can use your mouse to click the person you’d like to chat with.

The second is the ability to block and unblock, other survivors. Some people are just unpleasant. So if you don’t want to hear what someone is trying to say, you can block them and never have to worry about them unless you run into them on the server.



You can block someone by clicking their name in the chat window, or by opening the Survivors(L) menu, and manually blocking them by finding their username and clicking the X next to it. You may also unblock someone here if you feel like forgiving them.




That’ll wrap up this week’s patch note. Take care!
- Director K

[OFFICIAL DYSTERRA COMMUNITY CHANNELS] 🔗 Steam Community Forum 🔗 Discord 🔗 YouTube 🔗 Twitter 🔗 Facebook 🔗 Twitch

Greetings from Orbis!

Things are starting to pick up again here in the office, and we’re revving up to release our first major update. We’re planning to release it the first week of February (fingers crossed). There will be a lot to unpack, but I’d rather wait until we’ve ironed everything out before telling you all about what’s inside the update. What I can tell you right now is that we have two underground areas for you to explore. One is an underground training base used by the Hyenas, which will include all-new soldier NPCs. The other will be a mysterious underground area with multiple layers. Here’s an image of the latter to pique your curiosity. I’ll fill you in more next week!


Last week, I started sharing the backstory of the world of Dysterra.
We covered some basics about the world, but this week I’d like to dig deeper into the history of Ararat Island, and why the facilities are built there.

After hundreds of years in outer space, Orbis started running out of terrasite, its primary energy source. While increasing solar capacity would delay the need for more terrasite, the fastest solution to the problem was to mine terrasite down on the surface where conditions have mostly improved to make it livable between occasional volcanic eruptions.

The Orbis government placed five drills on the island to extract terrasite quickly and efficiently. Orbis also constructed research facilities on top of four drills to use the mined terrasite to study ways to effectively use it to counter the effects of terrafire on the local and global climate.


The Geolab research facility was built to find ways to stabilize the ground for construction building stability, while also finding out how to create artificial earthquakes in order to bring terrasite and other minerals to the surface.


The Meteocenter facility was built to investigate ways of controlling the weather to assist with farming and the recolonization of new areas. It currently only affects air temperature but it could one day also control precipitation. Since beans are mostly temperature dependant, they’re the only crop to have been successfully grown on Earth following the Great Terrafire. That’s why there are so many cans of baked beans lying around the island.


The Satellite Station was built to facilitate effective communication between the Orbis government and what was happening down on the surface. The EMP towers were built to allow communication with the space station during occasional electric storms in the ionosphere.


The Chemochamber was an experimental facility used to find ways to enhance physical ability using gamma rays emitted from activated terrasite. Testing started on local bear and elk, and moved on to DNA testing producing chimeras and other creatures you’ll find in Dysterra. At the center of the facility is an electric pylon that was once used to pacify the “creations” of the facility, but it seems that a few creatures have learned to absorb the electricity emitted from the pylons.


As for the Delta Plant and the large “crystal” above it, the delta plant was made to focus on deep drilling in order to extract as much terrasite as possible. The large “crystal” floating above it is an apparatus that uses terrasite to beam gamma rays (which are invisible to the naked eye) to Orbis in order to power the station. Something to note: the small terrasite transmitters located in Hyena bases and crafted at workbenches work by transmitting their terrasite to the Delta Plant’s Orbital Gamma Ray Emitter(O.G.R.E.). Any energy received by the OGRE is then sent directly to Orbis when its orbit passes above the facility.


Lastly, the Wall! One of our survivors asked me on Discord about the giant wall spanning the island. It was originally constructed to keep the Satellite Station secure by separating it from the rest of the island. Due to the importance of the Delta Plant to the future of Orbis, an additional boundary was also built to seclude the Delta Plant.


I hope this week’s dev note quenched your curiosity about the facilities. We’re excited about the February update, and we’re working hard to make sure you all will like it. My dev note next week will be the story of the events leading to the fall of Orbis control on the island, and the rise of the Hyena forces’ power.

Have a good one!
- Director K

[OFFICIAL DYSTERRA COMMUNITY CHANNELS] 🔗 Steam Community Forum 🔗 Discord 🔗 YouTube 🔗 Twitter 🔗 Facebook 🔗 Twitch