Dawn Apart News

[p]Hi everyone,
[/p][p]Ready to establish your outpost on Sirius B 3 and kick off your intergalactic mining operation?[/p][h3]We’re excited to announce that Dawn Apart launches into Early Access on July 14![/h3][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]Hot off the PC Gaming Show, our new release date trailer is here—and we can’t wait for you to finally dive into the game, automate your factories, optimize your workflow, and defend your operation against the It’ak.[/p][p][/p][p]While you wait, be sure to check out our newly updated and vastly improved demo, just in time for Steam Next Fest, starting June 9.[/p][p][/p][p]Thanks for being part of the journey—see you soon on Sirius B 3![/p][p]The IT&W Team[/p][p]
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[p]Dear Prospectors,

As we move closer to the Early Access launch of Dawn Apart - our hybrid of factory building and space colony simulation - we’re excited to announce that the game will be featured in this year’s PC Gaming Show!
Tune in on June 8th at 12pm PST / 3pm EST / 8pm GMT / 3AM CST/ 9pm CEST to catch our brand-new trailer (spoiler: it’s got a very fun twist!) and find out the official Early Access release date—which is right around the corner!

We’ll also be hosting a live watch party with the community in the #Witchcraft channel of our Discord. Come hang out, chat, and enjoy exclusive PC game reveals—including ours. 😉

But that’s not all…

On June 9th, Dawn Apart returns for the Steam Next Fest – June 2025 Edition, featuring our completely updated demo!

This new version includes:

- Major performance boosts

- Overhauled UI

- Loads of quality-of-life improvements

Whether you're new or tried the demo back in March, now's the perfect time to jump in—and don’t forget to leave an honest review on our demo page!

We’re incredibly excited to be this close to launch and can’t wait to get Dawn Apart into your hands. See you soon on Sirius B 3!
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We are pushing out a small hotfix update today to address some issues we were seeing reported. Mainly the modals which were offscreen in certain resolutions.

This update also brings with it the first test run of achievements! Currently we only have one that pops on starting the game, but in future updates we will be adding more that are linked to gameplay.

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Added Steamworks.Net Stats & Achievements Provider
  
• Fixed modals spawning offscreen for QHD resolution
  
• Fixed modals going off-screen on opening
  
• Added a predefined safe zone inside the MagPie on game start
  
• Prevented mining of lucrum by prospectors
  
• Adjusted camera's DoF effect depending on the zoom level
  
• Adjusted the shadow draw distance when fully zoomed
  

For the foreseeable future we are going to be focusing on bugs, crashes, general stability, optimization, and quality of life. As always if you run into any issues please submit a bug report and we will look into it and fix as much as we possibly can moving towards our Early Access release.

Thank you for all your support and we hope you all are having a great time playing!

Until next time!

The best place to get in touch with us and see what we are working on is by joining our Discord server. So if you haven't yet, stop by and let us know your thoughts!

Hello again everyone!

Today is the day we push our next update, and it's another huge one. With it comes performance improvements, massive QoL updates, improved agents, functioning doors, and so many more small things.

Many of the changes come from the work we've been doing getting the game ready for combat, which is approaching a place where it's alright to playtest. In the coming weeks we will begin pushing smaller updates, at a quicker pace, with bug fixes, improvements, and most likely enemy waves.

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Disabled agent grouping check for agents which have a specific end path node
  
• Added logic for finding the approximate nearest interaction position to use during move to action
  
• Added fallback logic for if an item doesn't exist on a trade (Needs to be fleshed out sometime, this just stops it from completely breaking)
  
• Moved logic for finding smart object interaction positions to be in-line instead of pre-calculated and cached
  
• Added Ignore HPA Override type to remove a voxel object from the graph completely
  
• Updated fire vfx graph to use the wind texture from the wind simulation
  
• Added logic for attack move
  
• Updated Pioneer detail view buttons and to show weapon even if not drafted
  
• Added no weapon tooltip
  
• Fixed agents not properly facing certain entities during interactions and combat
  
• Added small animation to hitscan line renderer
  
• Updated aiming animations to avoid weird animations during shooting
  
• Fixed rotation issues with weapon aiming ik
  
• Added procedural weapon recoil system
  
• Updated target sensor system to keep aiming in more cases after starting to aim for a shot
  
• Reduced the threshold for limb severing
  
• Added Goap action to take incapacitated agents to regen pods
  
• Added Goap action to store weapon when desired set to empty prototype
  
• Added logic for recovering from a ragdoll
  
• Added logic for gathering and handling all static and dynamic hpa dynamic obstacles during hpa pathing & movement
  
• Added logic for opening doors
  
• Created new HelpMenu window
  
• Added functionality in ModalsManager to make sure modals spawn inside of the available screen space
  
• Added functionality in ModalsManager to spawn every modal with a slight offset
  
• Added functionality in ModalsManager to always move the newly opened modal to the front
  
• Added support for displaying videos in BaseMessageContentControllers
  
• Added functionality in MessageLines to stay highlighted when selected (in the HelpMenu)
  
• Added speech bubbles to machines (EX: Blueprint not in stockpile, mining deposit depleted, workstation missing ingredients)
  
• Add time to Idle component and do simple example for idle machines speech bubble
  
• Added 2d outline material to be used for floating text icons
  
• Shortened fade out for FloatingTexts
  
• Highlighted buttons in ConstructMenu and RecipeSelectMenus with green tint when the respective ingredients are available
  
• Reduced columns in RecipeSelection menu from 8 to 7 columns
  
• Repositioned the crafting queue of the WorkstationDetailView
  
• Added health bars for entities with health
  
• DefaultMenuActionMap now staying active when entering any MainControls menu (meaning for example pressing "x" will also work while the construct menu is open)
  
• Reduced the number of sync points across the frame
  
• Added prewarmed object pools to many game object pools to avoid instantiation at runtime
  
• Removed AgentPlanningSetupJob
  
• Re-enabled burst for destroying flora
  
• Refactored a large number of jobs to be burst compiled (This is just a straight up free performance gain)
  
• Disabled blood decal spawning from explosions
  
• Added component for smart object entities which have disabled interactions to avoid unneeded looping
  
• Right click inside a MainControls menu now only closes the active menu when a drag is not currently in progress
  
• Moved blueprint hints behind other GUI elements
  
• Fixed orders buttons not reacting to the active category hotkeys
  
• Moved MainControls buttons to create equal spaces between them and the DetailView
  
• Increased max zoom of camera
  
• Inverted (rotated) maximizeIcon while window is maximized
  
• Made all modals and menu windows movable
  
• Added support for variable pivot points and anchor positions in the DragWindow component
  
• Resized CloseIcon and MaximizeIcon for menu and modal windows
  
• Removed maximize button from the load menu
  
• Added option to lock/unlock the cursor to/from the game window
  
• Updated various resource color palettes
  

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed store goap action not checking if path exists
  
• Fixed item crafting not displaying the correct amounts
  
• Fixed CraftQuestStep not incrementing by the correct amounts
  
• Fixed issue where entities which haven't be fully realized were being used as smart objects
  
• Fixed certain tooltips not having missing ingredient text localized
  
• Fixed converter not having localized made in text
  
• Fixed nan issues with floating text
  
• Fixed floating text having multiple - elements for negative numbers
  
• Fixed issue with units not taking into account current acceleration
  
• Fixed units aiming and looking at the bottom of feet during combat
  
• Fixed ui elements not properly being initialized when ui is disabled
  
• Fixed stolen item floating text not showing negative numbers
  
• Fixed "tree" showing up in possible weapons
  
• Fixed space port having small walkable enclosure
  
• Fixed converters with removed recipes still being considered by agents if they were valid for feeding on removal
  
• Fixed thin walls not properly creating hpa nodes
  
• Fixed workstations that aren't satisfied still being planned on if there is another satisfied workstation
  
• Added safe zone creation functionality
  
• Added logic for pathing within a safezone when the GlobalAlarm is active
  
• Added new GlobalAlarmActive component which is used when the alarm button is pressed
  
• Added sfx and vfx for alarm activation
  
• Added toast for alarm activation and deactivation
  
• Added logic for not planning for a smart object if it doesn't have interaction points within a safe zone
  
• Fixed issues with world space drag orders behaving strangely if the drag starts while hovering an object
  
• Updated multi goap interactions to find and use the closest when starting
  
• Updated the construct action to start constructing the nearest locked blueprint in relation to their GetItemEntity (a stockpile for example)
  
• Added new goap action to update the current multi target entity based on distance
  
• Fixed small vertical voxel gap in stockpile asset
  
• Fixed various components not having serialization attributes
  
• Fixed dead / incaped agents keeping their hpa paths
  
• Fixed foot grounding not properly using IkActive state
  
• Fixed various Ik systems still working with dead or incaped agents
  
• Fixed attacking without weapon
  
• Fixed multiple weapon slots causing issues with weapon swap
  
• Fixed weapon swapping ui not working if agent is drafted while ui is open
  
• Fixed weapon swapping not working when first selecting agent, also mixing up data between agents
  
• Fixed voxel models with odd number of voxels not properly getting snapped to the grid
  
• Fixed AABB being incorrect when using a raymarching offset component
  
• Fixed DeconstructMenu also closing on pressing x (like other menus)
  
• Fixed ConstructMenuOpened and DemolishingModeChanged events being triggered twice
  
• Fixed issue with damage not being cleared for non-voxel objects
  
• Fixed maximize modal button not working sometimes when window is maximized
  

[h2]A Note on Save Breaking PT. III[/h2]
In the last update we said there would be at least one more save break coming with our combat update. This is what we've been calling non-combat combat and with it came the large sweeping changes that broke a bunch of stuff. We are now in a better spot to keep saves working with updates. So hopefully after EA starts we won't have to write another one of these messages.

We are so excited to finally be getting such a massive update out into your hands. We hope you will instantly feel all the updates, and have a much better experience at every stage of the game.

Have fun playing and we can't wait to hear your thoughts.

Until next time!

The best place to get in touch with us and see what we are working on is by joining our Discord server. So if you haven't yet, stop by and let us know your thoughts!

Welcome, Prospectors, to a new edition of our community newsletter—where we shamelessly plug and, seemingly out of nowhere, shadow-drop our very own merch shop (take that, Oblivion Remastered!).



That’s right: you can now order premium, organic (whatever that means in clothing) bomber jackets, hoodies, and hats featuring the logo of Dawn Apart, our studio Industrial Technology and Witchcraft, or—if you're feeling a little evil—that of Kobayashi Schwarz, the galaxy’s leading interstellar mining megacorp.

If you want to rep our unique blend of automation game meets space colony sim IRL, grab a hoodie or jacket in your favorite color (the Kobayashi Schwarz Organic Hoodie (Stick) in Glazed Green, anyone?) for yourself or a loved one. Every cent of the profits goes directly into further refining Dawn Apart during Early Access, so your support truly makes a difference.



Speaking of support: we’ve also added the Dawn Apart Support Pack to the shop. It grants you an immediate Steam key that unlocks all Work-in-Progress builds leading up to and including the final Early Access version. If you missed the equivalent during our Kickstarter campaign, this is your chance to playtest and fine-tune the last iterations before EA. Just this week, we launched a massive new WIP build called "Expanded Factory", packed with new machines and trade missions—estimated playtime: roughly 15 hours!

In the meantime, we’re laser-focused on getting Dawn Apart ready for Early Access in July (stay tuned for the official release date announcement).

See you soon on Sirius B 3!