The Last Plague: Blight News

[p]Hey everyone,[/p][p][/p][p]Hope you are enjoying the holiday break![/p][p][/p][p]I wanted to follow up on the Q4 update release timeline. As we approach the end of the year I've had to make the tough decision to push the update further back into January given the remaining work and testing required.[/p][p][/p][p]I know a lot of you have been excited about getting your hands on the new NPC content and I was working very hard the past few months to get things ready, but unfortunately it will take a bit more time to get the experience feeling right with the least amount of bugs and issues.[/p][p][/p][p]Things are coming along well though. New character customization options were added to help power the new NPC characters and the very old AI system was completely rebuilt from the ground up to allow for much more complex decision making logic for the various entities in the game. Creature behavior should be more improved, and you will be able to run into other survivors in the world with dynamic goals, handling their own survival, friendliness and willingness to trade and cooperate.[/p][p][/p][p]Thank you for your continued patience and support. The game has evolved quite a bit over the last year with a ton of new features and content and I'm excited to make 2026 an even bigger year for The Last Plague with a proper 1.0 release.[/p][p][/p][p]Happy holidays and happy new year![/p]

[p]A few players were reporting issues with world generation and things like cabins appearing too often. Turns out there was an oversight with some of the updated distance checking code that caused incorrect distance calculations mostly at world generation time, and for some calculations like cabin generation at world explore time. With this update, cabin generation will be fixed going forward in existing post-v0.11.11 worlds, and new worlds will have everything else fixed up (including village and other feature placement). Apologies for the oversight![/p][p][/p][p]Fixes[/p]

• [p]Fixed bad distance calculation introduced in v0.11.11 for certain world generation based checks that would cause errors when generating new worlds, cabins that would generate too densely, and other similar issues[/p]

[p]Quick hotfix to resolve some issues with rendering objects and clouds in caves[/p][p][/p][p]Fixes:[/p]

• [p]Fixed objects and the character disappearing when zooming in or heading deep into a cave[/p]
• [p]Fixed cloud shadow effects appearing within caves[/p]

[p]Here are some more fixes and improvements while the Q4 update is built behind the scenes! Check out the Terrain Tessellation graphics setting if you haven't already now that the performance has been greatly improved[/p][p][/p][p]Fixes[/p]

• [p]Fixed black squares appearing on the terrain near snowy footprints or dug out holes when MSAA is enabled[/p]
• [p]Fixed shadow artifacts near snowy footprints when MSAA is enabled[/p]
• [p]Fixed incorrect graphical calculations that would result in shadowy looking snow on steeper terrain slopes[/p]
• [p]Fixed system to prevent Blight clouds generating in water by using a more accurate terrain height estimation process during initial world generation (as a result, you will only see this for new games after this update)[/p]
• [p]Fixed rafts being deleted when left to drift down a river to the south or west into unloaded areas (east and north were unaffected)[/p]
• [p]Fixed the calculations that determined when objects, grasses and the terrain are hidden when rotating the camera using a much more exact AABB frustum culling system. You will no longer see holes in the terrain or objects disappearing at the edge of the screen, especially when on or near very hilly terrain. The logic for hiding objects behind the camera was also fixed to prevent cases of shadows cast by these objects onto surfaces in front of the camera disappearing as the camera is rotated[/p]
• [p]Fixed recently gathered wild plants not allowing selection to be dug up[/p]
• [p]Fixed plants disappearing when planted and then dug up without watering[/p]
• [p]Fixed soft clay roof tiles not having a weight so that they match the fired clay roof tiles[/p]

[p]Improvements[/p]

• [p]Finally added proper terrain mesh optimization using a custom-built quad-tree level of detail (LOD) system that should slightly improve performance for less powerful graphics cards, and greatly improve performance across the board when using the Terrain Tessellation graphics setting. As a result, Terrain Tessellation no longer has a performance warning and is enabled by default on higher quality setting presets[/p]

[p][/p][p]Other changes[/p]

• [p]Removed the ability to overwrite autosaves in-game as these saves would be lost as the game autosaves more in the future[/p]
• [p]Increased the brightness underneath cloud shadows to be more realistic[/p]
• [p]Added stockpile support for small/large flints and sandstones[/p]

[p]More fixes and improvements in this update after a few great bug reports and feedback. Also took a stab at improving the stability of the co-op joining player experience after reports of chunks starting to disappear and not load after extended playtimes. Thanks everyone![/p][p][/p][p]Fixes[/p]

• [p]Fixed rare issue that caused certain chunks to not load or show up as a corrupted checkerboard of textures for co-op joining players, caused by a race condition of chunk retrieval retries (due to dropped packets) along with specific chunk load/unload timelines due to certain player movements in the world[/p]
• [p]Fixed rare decompression errors causing chunks to not load for extended periods of time for co-op joining players[/p]
• [p]Fixed outer corner clay tile roof stretching algorithm to avoid holes in the resulting mesh[/p]
• [p]Fixed outer corner clay tile roof placement colliding with walls directly under the roof and vice-versa[/p]
• [p]Fixed Blight level being way too high for smoked bass meat[/p]
• [p]Fixed tooltip for smoked items to show "Smoked from: " instead of "Hardened from: "[/p]
• [p]Fixed bug that would cause infinite hammering if a small stone broke during a building construction or taking apart process[/p]
• [p]Fixed co-op joining players not seeing any item updates in the construction materials window of in-progress buildings[/p]
• [p]Fixed substance hardening using the total mixture volume instead of the specific substance volume (ex. liquid tallow + water hardening into solid tallow using the full mixture amount instead of just liquid tallow)[/p]
• [p]Fixed some Slime resource labels appearing but not actually allowing selection and gathering[/p]
• [p]Fixed short planks and nails being impossible to select when they are dropped onto a plank or stone floor[/p]

[p]Additions[/p]

• [p]Added new status effects tab in the status window (alongside injuries and skills) to show more information about the various status effects that affect your character. This shows up as a separate window when using controllers[/p]
• [p]Added an auto-equip for small stones when a held stone breaks during construction or taking apart a building (similar to after throwing a stone)[/p]
• [p]Added new Butchering activity skill (and renamed existing Butchering crafting skill to Meat Handling) to track and reward animal carcass harvesting[/p]

[p]Balance[/p]

• [p]Increased skill level up requirements across the board[/p]
• [p]Vastly increased Slime spawning chance in swamps[/p]

[p]Other changes[/p]

• [p]Upgraded Unity version to 2021.3.45f2 after recent security advisory[/p]
• [p]Reworked step up logic to vastly improve navigation around short objects and structures like foundations, removing cases where you'd get stuck running against something that should easily be stepped over automatically[/p]
• [p]Prevented object selection when aiming a ranged weapon like a spear or bow to avoid clutter when aiming[/p]