The Dynamic Update

[h3]We are pursuing the “zombie” bug where a player gets into a non-responsive state after dying. (You might not think you’re dead because your health bar isn’t telling you the truth while in this state, but if the rest of the following conditions are true, then you are a “zombie”.)[/h3]

[p]You can’t /camp (it tells you that “you can’t camp if you’re dead” in chat)[/p]
[p]You can’t switch items on your toolbar[/p]
[p]You can’t interact with consoles or camps[/p]
[p]Creatures ignore you completely (won’t aggro on you)[/p]

[p]If these things are NOT true, then you are NOT a zombie. (No matter how cool that sounds like it might be, you ain’t it.)[/p][p]We have added a reporting mechanism if you end up in this situation. If you end up in the zombie state, then:[/p]

[p]Please type /reportbrokencharacter in your chat pane and add text after it to describe why you think you’re in the zombie state. (You must enter text or the report won’t be sent.)[/p]
[p]Then hit Enter. This will send a report to us so we can examine your character to determine similarities with other such reports.[/p]

[p]We’ve also added a ton of logging around the suspected areas where it might be happening. We’ve tested extensively internally after doing so, but of course, as Murphy requires, we can’t get it to dupe. So we’re updating the servers with that extra logging to see if it’s still happening “in the wild”.[/p][p]We’ve made a bunch of other fixes, so it’s possible that we fixed it without knowing we fixed it. That’s unlikely (because life isn’t usually that kind), but we won’t know for sure until after this update goes live.[/p][p]Other “under the hood” fixes included are:[/p]

[p]Code fixes to ensure that the servers stay in sync with each other during the Wild Wormhole events.[/p]
[p]A performance fix when crafting stacks of items or merging stacks of resources.[/p]
[p]A fix around Food items that prevented their duration being affected by PQRV stats.[/p]
[p]A performance fix that mostly affects forest fires and lava.[/p]
[p]A typo in a recipe that involved the Fluorine ingredient is now fixed.[/p]
[p]A building tile performance improvement.[/p]
[p]Some code cleanup around drones (aka Drone Lights) and DOTs (damage over time effects).[/p]

[h3]SKILLS KIOSK[/h3][p]Skills are now learned at a Skills Kiosk. You can still access your Skills display out in the field, but you’ll have to head back to the Starbase in order to upgrade your skills.[/p][p]Upgrading your skills costs XP, as usual, but now also requires a Klaatu expenditure, as well. (Earn Klaatu by completing missions from the Mission Kiosk.) The amount of Klaatu required to upgrade your skills is shown on your Skills page (“K” to open it) along with the XP cost.[/p][p]The Skills Kiosks are located in the main hub of the Starbase, near the entrance to the theater area.[/p][p]
[/p][h3]DYNAMIC WORMHOLES[/h3][p]Wild Wormholes are now a dynamic event![/p][p]On previous tests, wormholes were static and stayed for the entire length of the test. But now they are transient, as intended, and the wormholes themselves are inherently unstable.[/p][p]What this means is that wormholes will stay up for a random amount of time. During that time, you can travel through the wormhole, far beyond the reaches of Servitor-controlled space, and end up on a “wild” planet. There, you can explore and exploit that planet as desired.[/p][p]BUT…the wormhole is definitely going to collapse. If you’re still on the wild planet when it does, then you’ll have no choice but to release and be reformed according to your last-saved ReLife pattern back in Servitor space…without anything you acquired on the wild planet.[/p][p]So, it’s a race against time. Your friends at the TPL have provided a Wormhole Status Indicator on your HUD. It has different states to show you how close the wormhole is to collapse:[/p]

[p]Green = stable.[/p]
[p]Yellow, blinking slowly = starting to destabilize.[/p]
[p]Yellow, blinking moderately = becoming more unstable.[/p]
[p]Yellow, blinking rapidly = wrap it up…time to head home.[/p]
[p]Red, blinking furiously = you’re pushing it…the wormhole is about to collapse![/p]
[p]Steady red = your goose is cooked…prepare to head home the hard way without any new stuff you picked up on the wild planet.[/p]

[p]In the future, every time a dynamic wormhole opens up, it will connect to a new world, but for now, during this phase of testing, it’s likely to be the same planet every time, each calendar day. This will change in the future.[/p][p]
[/p][h3]Wild Wormhole Missions[/h3][p]Wild planet missions will be unavailable now unless a wormhole is actually open. Conversely, when a wormhole collapses, wormhole missions will become unavailable.[/p][p]But once a wormhole opens, there will be missions available for the planet on the far end. Be sure to grab some of those before you head through the wormhole![/p][p]If a wormhole collapses and you have incomplete missions for that world, they will time out after a bit (or you can Abandon them if you’d prefer). If you have completed the missions, then they don’t time out and you can cash them in at your convenience.[/p][p]Non-kill missions are now rewarded more highly if the mission is further away from the planet’s portal.[/p][p]Known Issue: When you portal or open a full-screen menu, the wormhole will falsely tell you it is stable green again. This will update at a maximum of two minutes after that and show you the correct status of the wormhole. This will be fixed soon.[/p][p] [/p][h3]ADDITIONAL UPDATES[/h3][p]“Slurry” Tailings[/p][p]Tailings have been improved so they flow quite rapidly when first placed and then quickly solidify into soils. Those soils will then start to grow grass if there is any grass nearby.[/p][p]Advantages to this include:[/p]

[p]Less “hills” created all over the place by dumping tailings[/p]
[p]Granting you the ability to fill holes more easily by filling the holes with tailings and smoothing out the divots.[/p]

[p]Improved Meteors[/p]

[p]Metal deposits were removed from all existing meteor showers to avoid “balls of metal” all over the world.[/p]
[p]Anti-gravium and Megarock events were removed entirely.[/p]
[p]Heavy Metal Noise! events (meteors) were added instead. They act like Megarock and make a big pool of lava where they impact and the metal they deposit sinks down into the world. When they cool, they leave a flat-ish surface behind and you’ll have to dig/prospect for the metal. There is one event for each metal category (Common, Rare, Exotic, etc.), but the event announcements are identical, so you have to prospect to find out what the meteor deposited.[/p]

[p]Improved Flora[/p]

[p]Many tree and bush asset upgrades to improve both visuals AND performance.[/p]
[p]Trees and bushes were shuffled to their proper biomes and there is now greater visual differentiation between biomes.[/p]
[p]There are now logs in many biomes again. Use your harvesters to get wood![/p]

[p]Kiosk Changes (Homestead, Mission and Tools)[/p]

[p]If you release a Homestead, it now refunds it into your inventory (instead of just losing it).[/p]
[p]When you access the mission kiosk, there are separate “pages” for each world so you can easily pick missions for that specific world.[/p]
[p]When viewing your current Missions, the rewards for those missions are now shown on the list.[/p]
[p]Missions that you can’t take are moved to the bottom of the list in the Missions Kiosk.[/p]
[p]Until we get a chance to make some improvements, Maguffins will be much closer to the surface so you won’t have to dig very far to get them. (To avoid the frustrating “infinite sand” issues.)[/p]
[p]There is now a Stripped Xyloslicer in the tools kiosk.[/p]

[p]User Interface[/p]

[p]Crafting recipes that create many items should no longer lag the player’s client.[/p]
[p]Improved first-time experience hallway with improved tutorial dialogs.[/p]
[p]You can now remove items from your toolbar. Navigate to your inventory, and click the “X” on the toolbar item to remove it from your toolbar and return it to inventory instead.[/p]
[p]You now get tooltips when you hover over items on your toolbar.[/p]
[p]Added a first-time Food tutorial so you can tell what food does and why you should use it.[/p]
[p]Keyboard sprites added to dialogs and first-time dialogs are greatly reduced in verbiage.[/p]
[p]There is now an option to skip the first-time experience Hallway when you make a new character, as long as you’ve gone through it once before.[/p]
[p]Gravemarkers are red now to match the waypoint color.[/p]

[p]Other[/p]

[p]Homesteads now have building tile limits. You can place up to 330 building tiles on a single Homestead, and 30 of those tiles can be lights. These limits are likely to increase as we optimize the building tiles and the lights (we are working on this now).[/p]
[p]Overcharge has improved VFX.[/p]
[p]Loading screen text improved for clarity[/p]

[h3]BUG FIXES[/h3]

[p]You should now get event notifications when you enter a zone, even if the event is already started.[/p]
[p]Fixed the “permanently frozen” issue some players were encountering.[/p]
[p]HUD display is now delayed until world is fully loaded (should prevent you from seeing the world without terrain)[/p]
[p]You can now properly do all drag-and-drop actions from a sorted inventory view.[/p]
[p]You should no longer see meaningless resource numbers when doing a Resource Scan with the Terraformer[/p]
[p]Debris Tool (for the first-time experience Hallway) has been increased in strength and radius to make it easy to clear the debris area so you can crouch walk through it without problem.[/p]
[p]The camera is tucked closer to your character’s body in tight situations to make the camera less jittery in tight quarters.[/p]
[p]The “low health warning” edge-of-screen effect on the HUD has been restored.[/p]
[p]Keyboard layout should be at the top of the list when F1 Help is accessed.[/p]
[p]Underwater plants should no longer appear above the water[/p]
[p]Seaweed and Kelp are no longer classified as trees. They are harvested by the Harvester, not the Xyloslicer.[/p]
[p]Paver tiles can be extracted again.[/p]
[p]First time player experience logic improved so if you die in the lava, you don’t get the electrified death dialog.[/p]