Core Keeper News

You may recognise some of these patch notes from an update we made to the experimental branch of
Core Keeper on Wednesday the 27th of April. These are now also live on the main branch of the game, along with some new additional patches, which we have highlighted in bold for you.



[h2]General[/h2]

• Dedicated servers are now available.
  
• The game is moving over to the new backend that we have been using on the experimental branch, as it has proven to work better overall.
• The repair system has been reverted back to using scrap parts as a result of working together with and gathering feedback from our community. The costs of scrap parts have been rebalanced so higher tier items cost more scrap parts. Scrap parts can be gained through salvaging again. The current materials gained from salvaging are still gained as well. The Bearded Merchant now also sells scrap parts instead of wood.
  
• A reinforcement mechanic has been added that allows players to extend the durability of their items as well as giving the item a small stat boost. Reinforcing an item costs some of the item's crafting materials.
  
• Added scrap parts that can drop from destructibles and some enemies.
  
• Higher tier hoes now cover a larger area. This works for both tilling and gathering plants in larger areas.
  
• Added a digging damage stat to shovels that impacts how many uses it takes to dig up ground. Health of ground has been rebalanced around the digging damage of shovels so that higher tier shovels are more effective against lower tier ground and lower tier shovels are less effective against higher tier ground.
  
• Added a Scarlet Hoe that can be crafted in the Scarlet Workbench.
  
• Added a Scarlet Shovel that can be crafted in the Scarlet Workbench.
  
• Moved the Scarlet Sword to be crafted in the Scarlet Anvil instead of the Scarlet Workbench.
  
• Large Watering Can now covers 2x2 tiles. More watering options coming later!
  
• Fishing rods no longer have durability.
  
• The chance to gain kelp from fishing has been reduced, and we’ve added resources such as ores, wood, fibre and scrap parts that can be gained from fishing.

[h2]Balancing Improvements[/h2]

• Slightly increased damage of Rune Song.
  
• Increased the max health of bosses.
  
• Azeos enrages at a bit higher health percentage.
  

[h2]Quality-of-Life[/h2]

• Other players can be made server admins from the pause menu.
  
• Players can be banned by admins from the pause menu.
  
• Added a button beside the Game ID for admins to regenerate the Game ID.
  
• Critters and fireflies will despawn in areas that have too many of them until a reasonable amount remain.
• Added a dropdown list in the "Join Game" menu that displays previously joined dedicated servers.

[h2]BUG FIXES[/h2]

• Fixed an issue with water visuals glitching sometimes.
  
• Fixed an issue where the second option in pop ups would sometimes not become highlighted when selected.
  
• Other players no longer play a “take damage” effect when their max health is reduced.
  
• Player health bar no longer blinks when other players max health is reduced.
  
• Fixed placement and digging being blocked by self for a small period after moving away.
  
• Fixed enemies becoming invisible sometimes instead of dying.
  
• Fixed Obsidian Walls popping up sometimes after digging a pit.
  
• Fixed double graves if exiting while dying.
  
• Fixed Recall Idol being able to consume the wrong item if switching equipped item right before teleport.
  
• Fix Minecart teleporting back to start if the player used it immediately after placing.

[h2]OTHER[/h2]

• Decreased network bandwidth usage of Azeos’ beams.
  
• Added command line parameters for common dedicated server settings.

Core Keeper, the Terraria-like underground survival sim that blew past 500,000 downloads on Steam just a couple weeks after launch, now has dedicated servers. The new feature, added in an update that rolled out today, will give Core Keeper players the ability to host their own multiplayer worlds for up to eight players...
Read more.

From the moment we announced that Core Keeper would have online multiplayer, the community was keen to know if they’d ever have the option to use dedicated servers. While we entered Early Access using player-hosted multiplayer, we were already looking into the logistics of facilitating this extremely popular community request.

Then, on the 27th of April, we invited you to help us test dedicated servers and some new repair-mechanic features for Core Keeper on an experimental branch of the game. Your feedback and bug reports were incredibly helpful, and they allowed us to iron out lots of the finer issues when working on this new functionality. Because of your help, we’re now in a place where we can launch what we were testing on the experimental branch on the main branch of Core Keeper!

From this moment onwards, players will have the option to operate their own dedicated servers for multiplayer worlds that can be accessed at any time without requiring a host to be in the game. If dedicated servers aren’t your thing, you’ll be pleased to know that in-game player-hosted multiplayer is still available at any time, and this now uses Steam’s networking back end when connecting players – solving many of the networking issues users have been reporting. We’ve also added a new admin functionality that will give players the option to kick people from their worlds across both dedicated servers and player-hosted games.

If you’d like to host your own dedicated server you can do so using Core Keeper’s own dedicated server hosting application, which will be available to run from the Tools menu in your Steam Library. If you helped us test dedicated servers on the experimental branch, you may remember that port forwarding was required, but this is no longer necessary.

[h2]Some Details on The Sunken Sea Update[/h2]

We’ve been hard at work on the Sunken Sea Biome, and we were very keen to have dedicated servers available before our first major update. This update will bring a brand-new, water-based biome to Core Keeper with lots of seascape to explore. Don’t use up all your wood crafting a bunch of bridges though, as this update reveals an exciting new way to cross water in the underground with the addition of boats!

Explore the Sunken Sea Biome by boating from island to island all while getting to grips with new weapons and gear; mining new valuables and ore; discovering new fish, plants, and food; and even crafting new base-building items. We can’t wait to show off even more of our impending update, and we’re delighted to announce that the full reveal will be featured in the PC Gaming Show on June 12th!

The future is looking bright for Core Keeper, we’ve got lots to look forward to in the coming months, and (as always) we want to hear from you! Join our Discord server to share your thoughts, opinions, and feedback – as well as to meet your fellow Explorers and become a part of our amazing community.

Did you take part in The Great Egg Hunt, Core Keeper’s first-ever seasonal event? From the 13th to the 19th of April, we invited Explorers to scour the underground in search of hidden Easter Eggs that could be used to craft a mysterious Golden Egg. We’ll be taking a closer look at The Golden Egg in this post, so be wary of spoilers if you’re still trying to figure out what it does!

You hunted in the Dirt Biome, the Clay Caves, the Forgotten Ruins, and Azeos’ Wilderness, uncovering four different egg types unique to each area. You even shared your journeys with us on the Core Keeper Twitter and Discord, and we loved seeing where The Great Egg Hunt took each and every one of you.

Image courtesy of Discord user Niloofar#9970

Some of you spent your time collecting as many Easter Eggs as possible, and it seemed a shame that these should disappear. We’d planned on removing the smaller eggs from the game at the end of the event (leaving only The Golden Egg as a permanent feature), but after listening to your requests, we decided to let you keep your Easter Eggs as decorative items all year ‘round!

Image courtesy of Discord user Mayyo#0486

[h3]GOLDEN EGG SPOILER ALERT:[/h3]

Of course, it was The Golden Egg that many of you were after, and it didn’t take long before some of you had uncovered its secrets. For those of you who figured this one out, what was it that inspired you to take The Golden Egg to Azeos’ Wilderness? Was it pure chance or did you make the connection between bird and egg? Whatever it was, by bringing The Golden Egg to Azeos’ arena, many of you managed to spawn the glimmering Awakened Azeos.

Defeating this seasonal variant of the Sky Titan ensures some exciting new loot, including special jewellery, an Awakened Azeos Figurine, and a pair of adorable Radical Rabbit Ears inspired by our very first game, Radical Rabbit Stew!

Image courtesy of Discord user InfinityCorp#5614

These seasonal collectibles are unobtainable anywhere else in the game, and we hope you enjoy them as a reward for taking part in The Great Egg Hunt. Why not use them to become a “bunny lord” like Twitch streamer FederalGhosts did here?

We hope you’re looking forward to more updates from us in the future including plenty of patches/hotfixes and, of course, the Sunken Sea Biome! We’ve not announced a date for this new update yet, but keep an eye on our Twitter and Discord for more info soon.