Survivalist News

I've pushed out a small update to patch a few issues people reported with the online co-op release.

The main additions are the ability to set a 'Greeting' message to be shown when people browse the list of games in the 'Join Online Co-op Game' menu, so you can tell people what to expect and what you're looking for - and you now have the ability to kick people from your game, which bans them from joining it again. You can do that from the Online Co-op Settings menu.

Lastly, there's a bunch of fixes for bugs that were reported. Many thanks to the people who reported them.

Here's the change log:

• Added option to set a 'Greeting' to be shown when people view your game from the 'Join Online Co-op Game' menu
  
• Added option to kick (and ban) players from online co-op games
  
• Fixed buildings being placed in the wrong position by the cheat menu
  
• Fixed clicking Farm on a well not working
  
• Fixed crash when half-built buildings are set on fire
  
• Fixed a couple more reported crashes
  

It's alive.. it's alive! I've finally made the online co-op patch (which has been available in a beta-testing branch for the last six months) live in the main branch!

This update brings a ton of other changes, I'll list here the bigger ones (and some smaller ones that were reported to me as bugs by various people):

• Added Online Co-op
  
• Added Log Screen (F5)
  
• Changed savegame interface to support more than 8 savegames
  
• Added AI for characters following someone who is gathering supplies, or getting water from a well, to do the same
  
• Added ability to import translations from TSV files
  
• Added Alternate Action shortcut (middle mouse button) to inventory controls for things like Eat, Drink, etc
  
• Fixed raiders bodies getting deleted immediately after they die
  
• Fixed issue where characters in your community would dislike you for threatening looters
  
• Fixed bug where 'There's too many of them out there' awardment was not awarded if you abandoned then re-occupied your bunker.
  
• Fixed footstep sound not playing sometimes
  

Let me know if you have any problems.

EDIT: Some people were reporting problems on Windows XP so I had to issue another quick patch.

I've released another patch for the online co-op beta. This one's pretty minor, just what I hope will be some last fixes before I move online co-op to the main branch.

I've added one small new feature - the ability to import translations from a .tsv file, such as could be exported from Google Docs, without needing a new build of the game as was previously the case. This should make translating much easier. I'm going to make translations of the game available on Google Docs to allow multiple people to collaborate on them.

Here's the change log:

• Added ability to import translations from TSV files.
  
• Added Progress counter when waiting for someone to receive game state.
  
• Fixed some ragdoll prediction glitches.
  
• Fixed crash when walking away while swapping supplies.
  
• A few other crash fixes and translation fixes.
  

If you haven't tried the beta test yet, you can test it by doing the following:

• Right-click on Survivalist in your Steam library and click Properties
• Go to the Betas tab
  
• Select publicbeta on the drop-down where it asks you what beta you want to opt in to
  
• PLEASE NOTE: any savegames you make with this branch will not be compatible if you switch back to the main branch. So don't overwrite anything that's important to you!
  

If you find any problems, let me know! You can post a reply to this news post or email me or post in the forums.

I've released the latest patch for the online co-op beta and I think I'm pretty close to being able to move it into the main branch. This one's basically a grab bag of different fixes, many of which are too obscure to list here. I'm in that final stage of a project where you just keep thinking you're finished and then finding bugs and fixing them and introducing new ones in the process, but hopefully it should all be over soon!

I did manage to work on a commonly requested feature for the AI though: if you have NPCs following someone who is bringing supplies home, they will help bring more of the same supplies if they have room in their backpack. They should also be better at getting food for themselves etc while the leader is sleeping.

Here's the change log:

• Added AI for characters following someone who is gathering supplies, or getting water from a well, to do the same.
  
• Added Alternate Action shortcut (middle mouse button) to inventory controls for things like Eat, Drink, etc.
  
• Added ability for online co-op games to run at 60 fps, if all players have the option ticked.
  
• Changed autosaves to split between Single Player and Multiplayer so your progress can't get over-written by trolls
  
• Changed 'Don't allow anyone to join' mode to 'Invite Only'
  
• Fixed bug introduced in earlier online co-op beta versions where quicksaves or autosaves could get overwritten
  
• Fixed raiders bodies getting deleted immediately after they die
  
• Fixed a bunch of small bugs and occasional crashes
  

People who bought the game on XBox 360 might be interested to know I've pretty much got online co-op working on there as well, so I should be able to release that soon.

Oh yeah and I changed the colour of the menus too!

If you haven't tried the beta test yet, you can test it by doing the following:

• Right-click on Survivalist in your Steam library and click Properties
• Go to the Betas tab
  
• Select publicbeta on the drop-down where it asks you what beta you want to opt in to
  
• PLEASE NOTE: any savegames you make with this branch will not be compatible if you switch back to the main branch. So don't overwrite anything that's important to you!
  

If you find any problems, let me know! You can post a reply to this news post or email me or post in the forums.

I've finally got prediction into the online co-op beta test build! For those that don't know, prediction is what online multiplayer games use to cover up the lag from slow or unreliable network connections - if you haven't received a network message from someone yet, you just guess what they would have done. So this should make the game appear smoother on slower connections, at the cost of some glitches when the prediction guessed wrong.

Here's the change log:

• Added Prediction
  
• Fixed Fort Kohai characters incorrectly talking about Bud Anderson when asked to join you
  
• Fixes for some pathfinding bugs introduced in earlier online co-op beta versions
  

If you haven't tried the beta test yet, you can test it by doing the following:

• Right-click on Survivalist in your Steam library and click Properties
• Go to the Betas tab
  
• Select publicbeta on the drop-down where it asks you what beta you want to opt in to
  
• PLEASE NOTE: any savegames you make with this branch will not be compatible if you switch back to the main branch. So don't overwrite anything that's important to you!
  

If you find any problems, let me know! You can post a reply to this news post or email me or post in the forums.