BRAVE NEW WORLDS UPDATE

[h2]TUESDAY, JULY 28 UPDATE[/h2][p]Thanks to the great feedback we received from last weekend’s 36-hour test, we realized the need for another fast-turnaround update before we get back onto focus for the next update after this one. This is abnormal procedure for us, but some of this needed to be done so you could play while we work.[/p][p]
[/p][p]The list of fixes includes:[/p]

• [p]Starting Professions got a series of updates to make them more well-rounded and fun. See “Professions Changes” below for more details.[/p]

• [p]The Cooking recipes for StaminaBooster, HealthBooster, and FocusBooster are now granted to all players so you have a way to leverage up your skills in the Cooking tree.[/p]
• [p]Players that do not have a Terraformer or Xyloslicer were finding it nearly impossible to advance their way up skill trees without some limited form of access to wood, gems, metals and gasses. Therefore, new drops have been added to various bushes, thickets and trees to make up for this lack. (See the “Added Harvesting Drops” list below).[/p]
• [p]If a server went down for any reason, and you were on the affected planet, then there was a chance you would randomly be respawned back to the FTUE Hallway. This has now been prevented, and if you were on a planet that is unavailable when you login, you will appear in the TPL Starbase instead.[/p]
• [p]Creature loot glows again! So tall grass or dark nights will no longer hide it from you.[/p]
• [p]Even better, the bug with creature loot is fixed and there should be lots more of it now. Actually…all loot benefited from this bug fix, so it should just generally feel better everywhere in all situations now.[/p]
• [p]PQRV stats no longer have decimal points of precision, thus preventing the “invisible inventory” issue that affected many players on the weekend.[/p]
• [p]When you use Deposit (Terraformer function), you can now deposit from the total of all stacks. Deposit will just treat them as one large stack for now. (Later, you’ll have the opportunity to decide which of the stacks get consumed, but for now, we just wanted the function to work again.)[/p]
• [p]The Peaceful Settler can now place a camp and upgrade it to a Homestead, as originally intended.[/p]
• [p]You can no longer place a Camp in the FTUE Hallway, thus preventing a way to get outside the hallway.[/p]

[p][/p][p]Professions Changes[/p]

• [p]Explorer: Replaced the Harvester with the Xyloslicer. (Xylo is removed from Crafter making the Explorer the premier wood gatherer of the five professions.) No other changes.[/p]
• [p]Soldier: Replaced Terraformer with Harvester so the Soldier can make their own Medicines. Removed Chronphaser (because no Terraformer). Added Weaponsmith so Soldier can make PowerCells.[/p]
• [p]Scientist: Old version of Scientist was jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none. Still has Gravity Gun, but also gets Reflection Shield now! Added Terraformer and lots of Refining skills (Alloy and Other are unlocked) so the Scientist is the sci-fi Alchemist of the group.[/p]
• [p]Settler: Gets Pathfinder instead of Xyloslicer to open up gameplay opportunities as you gather. Now gets basic Refining (with Soils unlocked), Farming, and Toolmaking. Still no weapon though, so watch your step![/p]

[p][/p][p]Added Harvesting Drops[/p][p]The drops listed below are in addition to the drops for that flora that previously existed.[/p][p]Bushes[/p]

• [p]Besom Scrub now drops dark soft wood[/p]
• [p]All the alien mushrooms (blushing bonnet, brimmed bonnet, dark wizard, lilac dandy, and witch's ringlet) all occasionally drop Salt[/p]
• [p]Emberbloom Torch now drops Ammonia[/p]
• [p]Hexavine Spires can be harvested for Magnetized Iron[/p]
• [p]Lumipora and Lumipora Stand can both be harvested for Dark Soft Wood[/p]
• [p]Sunset Coleus drops Silver[/p]
• [p]Verdark Cone drops Tin[/p]

[p]Thickets[/p]

• [p]The Alder thickets drop Light Soft Wood[/p]
• [p]The Berry thicket drops Stimberries[/p]
• [p]The Jungle thicket drops Dark Soft Wood[/p]

[p]Trees[/p]

• [p]Blue Veil drops Radon[/p]
• [p]Duskleaf drops Flourine[/p]
• [p]Organ Pipe can be harvested for Copper[/p]
• [p]Spore Pod drops Methane[/p]
• [p]Lunareth drops Xenon[/p]

[p][/p][h2]FRIDAY, JULY 25 UPDATE[/h2]

• [p]The Soils skill node was missing from the Refinery skill tree. [/p]
• [p]The Intrepid Explorer profession was incorrectly awarding the Terraformer instead of Harvester. This is now fixed.[/p]
• [p]We had an issue with FTUE tutorial crates not getting cleared properly between players and “doubling up” on players. This is resolved.[/p]
• [p]The delay after you clicked on an inventory icon before you could drag it has been removed.[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue that made the character disappear frequently as the camera moved around and improved the minimum distance settings for camera placement.[/p]
• [p]Improved the burning effect on flora, especially the transition from burning to burnt.[/p]
• [p]Improved audio for the Wormhole and when you are on fire.[/p]
• [p]The skill nodes for Health, Stamina, and Focus Boosters were incorrectly labeled as zero XP to purchase. They have been adjusted to 100XP each, as the other cooking recipes.[/p]
• [p]The text error showing Iron as a Tier 1 metal has been changed to “A very common metal” instead.[/p]
• [p]The meteor shower display strings have been updated to not reference planets so they make sense when seen in space.[/p]

[p][/p][h2]THE NEW WORLDS[/h2][p]You’ve been adventuring in Rodin IV, Zaraxa, Gaiamar, Pyromycis, and Escarion for many months now. [/p][p]The Servitors have retired those wormgates and they are no longer accessible. In preparation for moving the game to 24/7 status, we are retiring all of our old planets and bringing you new ones instead.[/p][p]Going forward for the near future, we’ll have three persistent planets, the space zone, and occasional wild wormhole worlds. We’ll let you discover those planets on your own for now.[/p][p]Those new worlds are formulated using the new rarity systems for metals and gems, and they’re also being set up with randomized crafting stats on those elements. Because of that, we also need you to create new characters so we can clear out your inventories, leaving you with only the newly-created materials.[/p][p]So this update requires brand new characters exploring brand new worlds. Enjoy![/p][p][/p][h2]FIRST-TIME USER EXPERIENCE[/h2][p]Until now, the only “tutorial” that existed was a string of text dialog boxes that…well…left a lot to be desired. This is now replaced with a short tutorial that places you on a doomed starbase and runs you through the basics of the game. At the end of the experience, you’ll then get to choose a starting Profession![/p][p]Professions grant you starting sets of equipment and a few unlocked skills to help define your path. You get to choose between:[/p]

• [p]Intrepid Explorer[/p]
• [p]Valiant Soldier[/p]
• [p]Brainy Scientist[/p]
• [p]Diligent Crafter[/p]
• [p]Peaceful Settler[/p]

[p]For those of you that have played previously, this means that you’re only getting a subset of tools from what you got previously. You’ll have enough to get started, but you’re not going to be able to do everything. Time to start communicating with other players!

(NOTE: This will get easier in the near future as we work on chat systems and other systems that allow easy communication and/or marketplace trading.)[/p][p]When you’re done choosing your Profession, hop through the nearby portal and arrive at…
[/p][h2]THE TPL STARBASE[/h2][p]The Starbase is a large, sprawling complex in space. It has landing pads, a marketplace, a park, a theater, a ReLife center, and a central social hub (and it has been assembled entirely from the same Fabricator pieces that you can use within the game).[/p][p]Be sure to check out:[/p]

• [p]The Mission Boards (see below for details)[/p]
• [p]The Title Shop[/p]
• [p]The “Hall of Heroes” plaques that line the floor in the central hub, saying thank you to our largest Kickstarter backers![/p]

[p][/p][h2]THE MISSION BOARDS[/h2][p]In the marketplace area of the TPL Starbase, you’ll find the Mission Board kiosks. Access those to grab TPL-approved missions that let you earn Klaatus (currency) that you’ll be able to spend in many future ways (and one current way).[/p][p]Missions are simple for the moment. You take on a task of some sort: harvest, survey, kill, heal, or find. You can take one of each type of task. Each mission is located on a specific planet. Go to that planet, look for the waypoint that’s in the mission area and complete the task.[/p][p]When you’re done, return to the Starbase to turn in your missions and get your Klaatus.[/p][p]For now, you won’t be able to do a lot with that currency, but you can find the Title Shop kiosks in the main hub of the Starbase and buy titles to wear proudly (and sometimes usefully!). [/p][p][/p][h2]METAL AND GEMSTONE RARITY[/h2][p]The “tiers” of metal that existed previously have been replaced with Rarity categories instead. This change has also been applied to the gemstones.[/p][p]You can access the F1 “Resource” screen to see the new rarities. If a resource is “rare” that doesn’t apply to the amount of a resource you’ll find on a particular planet. What it means is that as we generate planets, some resources will occur more or less commonly than others. So over the course of exploring various planets, you’ll find certain resources to be more rare than others. But once you find a rare metal or gem on a planet, there might be quite a bit of it there! Dig in and get some![/p][p]Recipes for many items have been refactored with this new rarity system in mind.[/p][p][/p][h2]INVENTORY SCREEN REFACTOR[/h2][p]The inventory screen has been completely gutted and rebuilt. It’s not finalized, but it’s much cleaner and more useful than it was previously.[/p]

• [p]The Clothing and Toolbar tabs have been combined together onto one screen.[/p]
• [p]You’ll see aesthetic changes and icons should be large (and no longer buggy).[/p]
• [p]The PQRV stats are easily accessed by clicking on the “Show Stats” radio button. NOTE: The items have not yet been hooked up with stats, so these will display zeroes currently. But we’re working on it! [/p]

[p][/p][h2]IMPROVED RENDERING AND FLORA[/h2][p]We are in the middle of updates to the way our worlds look. You’ll be seeing a lot of new-looking flora on hot & humid worlds, as well as hot & arid. We’re still working on other biome combinations.[/p][p]We’ve also improved many rendering methods, but this update only includes part of those updates. That will be completed in the next update.[/p][p][/p][h2]OTHER UPDATES[/h2]

• [p]Ice Fall meteors now drop ice…which melts into water.[/p]
• [p]Foundation tile is now available again in the Basic Set for the fabricator.[/p]
• [p]The Antimatter and Ammonium recipes are also available as they should be..[/p]
• [p]Creature taming foodstuffs now make more logical sense. The system itself hasn’t been improved yet, but all creatures now have more logical (and varied) foodstuffs they desire. [/p]
• [p]Loot drops for creatures and makers have been improved significantly and rebalanced. You’ll find much greater variety in loot drops now, which will be useful in coming updates when PQRV stats are a necessary element in crafting.[/p]
• [p]Combat tips added to F1 screens (to explain the color-coding danger rating system to new players).[/p]
• [p]Resource screen (F1) edited to match new rarities[/p]
• [p]The follow-camera now pushes forward when it hits a building tile, resulting in less clipping through buildings. We still have some issues where the camera gets “pinched” between the player and the walls, resulting in a bit of a freak out, but we’re working on it.[/p]
• [p]Fixed the “slide back three steps when you enter a new world” bug[/p]
• [p]Overcharge now has audio[/p]

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