The Pioneers: surviving desolation News

Be prepared to welcome the first playable vehicle of The Pioneers, aka the exploration rover, aka...
[h2]THE BEAR!!!!!!![/h2]
It will be introduced in the 2nd major update of our EA roadmap, along with a new character, new equipment, threats, and exploration content. The Bear is massive, modular, and incredibly useful during your journey on Io.



Our last release was somewhat rushed, resulting in numerous bugs and an overall unsatisfactory experience for some players. To avoid repeating our mistakes, we have commenced an intensive internal Q/A testing phase, followed by a playable release on the beta branch of the game. If you are willing to assist us, please don't hesitate to join us on Discord and obtain the necessary information to access the pre-release build: https://discord.gg/thepioneersgame


Stay tuned to be among the first to embark on the rover!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1734390/The_Pioneers_Surviving_Desolation/

[h2]Dear Pioneers,[/h2]

As we had announced in our roadmap, the next major patch "Road Trip" will introduce the game's first vehicle, as well as a new dedicated station module, new equipment, a new character, and above all, much more exploration gameplay. We had planned to release it at the end of the second quarter of this year, but to avoid clashing with the Steam summer sales, we decided to postpone its release until mid-July.

This is good news, as it will also allow us to finalize the implementation of our new character production method, which will ultimately allow us to offer you visuals, narrative, and cutscenes featuring the pioneers' faces. To give you a taste of what awaits you, here's a little teaser.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
There's not much longer to wait, and to help you cope, here are this week's patch notes.
See you on Io!



GAMEPLAY

• New version of the storm system
  In preparation for the Q2 update, we have started to implement new behaviors for existing threats.
  Lightings are now individual entities, which can directly strike terrain elements, including your pioneers.
  Their paths are influenced by the height and conductivity of objects. So pay attention to the environment during your explorations.
  

UI

• Added an experience bar around the action circles to materialize progress in the associated skill
  
• Improved personality traits selection interface
  
• Improved icons and notifications in the main HUD
  
• Replaced placeholder icons for machines and equipment
  
• Improved vertical scrolling in the construction menu
  
• Added new tooltips
  

ANIMATION

• Added craftng animation in the workshop
  
• Added an animation when a pioneer experiences an electric shock
  
• Added an animation when a pioneer is struck by lightning
  
• Added an animation when a pioneer is hungry
  

SOUND

• New SFX for propulsion boots
  
• New SFX for climbing
  
• New SFX for the station reactor
  

BALANCING

• Doubled skills XP bars at all levels
  The skill system is supposed to give specificity to each crew member but it is easily bypassed, especially thanks to the quick achievement of the first level. By making character progression in skills more difficult, we wish to give more value to these skills, forcing the player to adapt their gameplay to the strengths and weaknesses of their survivors. We will make other adjustments in this direction in the coming patches.
  

• Increased cost of large rooms: 80->100 carbon nanotubes
  
• Reduced nanotubes quantity in the starting loot: 200->180
  Many of you do not consider the construction of small modules as a valid choice in the current balance of the game. In order to make it a viable strategic option, we therefore wish to increase the necessary investment for the construction of large modules and reduce the starting construction materials stock.
  

BUG FIXES

• Fixed a bug that prevented the saving of ship construction sites
  
• Fixed a a bug that allowed the same personality trait to be added twice to a pioneer
  
• Fixed a a bug that could affect material crates when loading a game
  

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1734390/The_Pioneers_Surviving_Desolation/

[h2]Dear Pioneers,[/h2]

Please find a small update that fixes many small bugs and add a first version of the ship construction site. Enjoy the game !




[h3]Graphics[/h3]

• Added a construction site when you start to repair a ship part. More polish to come on this feature
  
• Improved dust VFX
  

[h3]Sound[/h3]

• Added zipline SFX
  

[h3]Bug prevention[/h3]

• Improved climbing to prevent some bugs if the arrival point has no navmesh
  

[h3]Bug fixes[/h3]

• Fixed diamond and battery processing that was not working properly since the last patch
  
• Fixed crates 3D models display
  
• Fixed processing timer calculation
  
• Fixed pathfinding around the medical bed
  
• Fixed zipline speed. It no longer depends on the distance between 2 posts
  
• Fixed ascensumophobia trait
  
• Fixed idle item
  
• Fixed storm bolt that was not applying the correct debuff effect
  
• Fixed various sound volumes
  
• Fixed various save issues
  

Dear Pioneers,

Releasing a game is not an easy task. You have to manage the influx of new bugs, work on fixes, prepare major updates, take care of your growing community... After more than 3 months of intensive work, the whole team needed to take a moment to rest. That's why we took a little more time than usual to bring you this new patch.

We still took advantage of this low intensity period to set up our new offices. It's really quite new. As you can see on the picture, the computers are not even plugged in yet, but we are happy to finally have a proper place to work!



This week's patch brings you a new batch of all kinds of fixes, as well as a much-awaited feature for the community: production automation on all processing machines.

More details below. Enjoy!



[h3]Gameplay[/h3]

• Automation's upgrades are now available on processing machines. You can use them to batch the desired amount of material to be processed
  
• You can also now queue automated and non-automated processing tasks
  
• Deep rework of the looting gameplay. The crates are now specialized, visually distinguished and distributed differently on the map. The farthest loots also usually contain better rewards
  
• Characters now appear in game in the order in which they were selected (when setting the mission)
  
• Added a new defeat condition if the mental health of all characters (or the last one) drops to zero
  

[h3]UI[/h3]

• Added a "support the game" button in the main menu and in an easter egg in the station's hub
  
• Added a hierarchy system to the action menu to navigate through different levels of commands
  
• Polished action menu animations
  

[h3]Twitch extension[/h3]

• Added a leveling system to voting options. The extension is now better balanced and more interesting for both viewers and streamers. Please tell your favorite content creator to give it a try!
  

[h3]Bug fixes[/h3]

• Improved pathfinding system to avoid most of "I prefer to turn around this thing instead of using it" issues
  
• Fixed a bug that made the crashed probe inaccessible since the lakes update
  
• Fixed a bug on character selection
  
• Fixed Maggie that were sometimes not visible when the roof was displayed
  
• Fixed custom traits calculation
  
• Fixed various save issues
  
• Fixed various localization issues
  

Thanks for reading. See you on Io!


https://store.steampowered.com/app/1734390/The_Pioneers_Surviving_Desolation/

[h2]Dear Pioneers,[/h2]
Following our latest batch of updates, please find here a few additional fixes and changes.



[h3]Bug fixes[/h3]

• Fixed difficulty presets layout that was not updating properly
  
• Fixed game score screen. Level and score should now be correctly displayed
  
• Fixed resources cost in the victory conditions UI panel
  
• Fixed recycling feature. You should now recover the right amount of resources
  
• Fixed a main airlock / elevator bug that could occur if you saved a game when a character was in the airlock
  
• Fixed heavy injuries that were not triggering death properly
  
• Fixed various localization strings
  

[h3]Bug prevention[/h3]

• Refactored quest and buff game systems to make them more resilient and ready to welcome more content (Q2 update preparation)
  

Thank you for playing!

[h3]If you like the game, do not hesitate to demonstrate your support by posting a Steam review! It helps a lot![/h3]
Cheers!

PS: 2 days left before 15% discount is ending.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1734390/The_Pioneers_Surviving_Desolation/