DinoSystem News

- Mushrooms are just part of a bigger "parent" organism that lives and grows below the actual soil, so picking up a single mushroom will not kill the "parent" organism.
- Dead vegetation and dung increase the organism's energy, allowing it to produce more Mushrooms, therefore expand and reproduce.
- Mushrooms won't take root on hostile terrains (like aridity), but their "parent" organism can endure extreme conditions for some time.
- Mushroom terrain is more likely to retain water, when arid.



- The Player can harvest, cook and eat Mushrooms.
- Most Mushrooms are poisonous; which color is or isn't edible is randomly decided at game start, so that the player must discover it in each new game.
- Some erbivoures eat Mushrooms and can occasionally be visibly affected by the poison, the Player can discover which color is poisonous by simply watching the animal's reaction.
- Player receives less damage from the poison if the Mushroom is cooked.
- Added few new hints about mushroom poisoning (loading/menu/ingame hints).






- Added the ability to "lock" weather sliders (rain, wind, humidity, temp), to prevent them from fluctuating due to the dynamic weather simulation.






- When a skill drops to the previous level, its progression starts from 50% (instead of 0%), since you need less practice to "relearn" the lost level.
- Skill progression decay rate increased by ~10% (to partly balance the aforementioned change).
- Added a new Guide page explaining the Skill System.






- Wind Exposure amplifies Wetness gained from rain/snow.
- Wind Exposure, when covered by a Thatch, still allows Wetness to partly increase, depending on wall insulation (rain falling from the side).
- Damage inflicted (both melee and ranged) is less dependent from weapon condition (at 0% weapon condition -> 50% dmg, up from 33%).
- Body Weight is now shown without the addition of body hydration and stomach content (both in the screen info player and as +/- trend), but the actual weight used to calculate moving speed, jump etc is still influenced by those variables. Screen info tooltip updated to reflect the change (and now also shows the actual full weight as an addendum).
- Muscle Soreness gain from walking and crafting/first aid reduced.
- Muscle Soreness decay rate reduced and formula revisited to improve balance.
- Body Muscle growth rate reduced by 33%.
- Vitamins decay rate increased by 50%.




- Seasonal rain chance tweaked to reduce droughts in summer.
- Minimal rain session duration slightly increased.
- Increased island water (and thus fertility) at new game creation during Autumn (+50%) and Summer (+20%), as especially Autumn was often too barren.
- Pond formation chance from rain increased in arid terrain.
- Minor rebalance to vegetation energy mechanics.




- [Graphics] Fern/Leaf/Flowers texture improved.
- [Graphics] Added particles effect for gathering actions.
- [Audio] Added a new music track playing in the in-game menus and guide (can still be disabled in the settings).
- [Audio] Player footstep and jump landing sounds improved and added some more variations based on terrain.
- [Interface] Mousehover text over animal, based on Zoology skill, can now be coloured to signal aggression level (red -> attacking you, orange -> aggressive, yellow -> passive, green -> tamed).
- [Interface] Eating action tooltips for most foods revisited to take into account also vitamins.
- [Controls] Holding +/- (or Page Up/Down) keys will smoothly zoom in/out, instead of instantly once pressed.
- [AI] Triceratops and Ankylosaur reaction to player bumping into them improved, they will often just be spooked (also females and youngs which previously had no reaction), while males will still occasionally attack.
-[AI] Adult herbivores will now also go after fruit when hungry, if it's in front of them (even when mouse-dragged by the player).




-[Survival] Fixed fish/meat being chased by animals also when inside a backpack, and triggering the Taming event (they can still eat from a backpack if they've seen food inside it).
-[Survival] Fixed equipped items occasionally showing on top of the character head, after loading a save.
-[Survival] Fixed Gathering action continuing forever if started while the plant/tree was disappearing.
- Fixed young T-Rex occasionally bumping into unrelated dormient adults when reaching a sleeping spot, until it passes out or the adult wakes up.
- Fixed male Triceratops still being 100% Rutting after mating in spring (but no longer displaying the red crest).
- Fixed food stolen/eaten by animals directly from a backpak not becoming visible.



These are only the most relevant changes, as always there are tons of other in this update, check the full changelog for the complete list!




Dan

• To plant a tree, right click on a fruit (Berry, Cone or Coconut), and select "Plant".
  
• The action tooltip suggests which conditions are needed for the specific fruit to take root.
  
• The planting action is tied to your Digging skill, the higher the skill, the faster the action.
  
• After being planted, the tree will take root after 1 day (if conditions allow it).

• Wounds will only appear when the character receives a hit causing the Bleeding effect (and the size scales with the Bleeding % received).
  
• If the hit appears on an existing wound, it becomes bigger instead of creating a new one on top/close to it.
  
• When the player performs First Aid or the Bleeding reduces/stops, the visible wounds associated to it reduce/heal too.
  
• The effect is disabled if the "Blood Decals" setting is turned off.

• While swimming, reaching 0 Breath causes Health loss by drowning (-5/sec).
  
• While swimming, character body becomes visibly submerged the more he/she loses Breath.
  
• Breath consumption from swimming and static actions (like crafting, butchering etc) rebalanced.
  
• Breath recovery speed now only scales with maximum Breath, instead of multiple variables (that was redundant and not perfectly balanced, since max Breath itself also depends on those variables).
  
• Maximum Breath gained from Endurance skill increased from +50% to +75%.
  
• Maximum Stamina calculation reworked, from 66 min - 133 max, to 75 min - 125 max (still based on Metabolism and Endurance skill).
  
• Stamina decay over time slightly reduced in some circumstances.
  
• Stamina recovery while sleeping now fully scales with max Stamina, instead of scaling with it only by 50% (this means that characters with low maximum Stamina do not recover it faster than those with high max Stamina).
  
• The player will no longer receive "i'm tired!" warnings (including screen blinking/yawn sound) if the character is too agitated to actually fall asleep.

• Muscle Soreness gain from ALL actions halved, and periodic decay halved too, resulting in a less volatile Muscle Soreness (and decay now triggers every 1 sec, instead of 10).
  
• Muscle Soreness decay rate from good nutrition (especially if highly proteic) increased.
  
• Proteins in surplus (aka if > than Calories), when converted into Calories, produce only 5 kcal per 1 Protein, instead of 25 kcal (that was excessive!).
  
• Calories/Proteins/Water assimilation rate slightly increased and balance improved.
  
• Body Fat/Muscle gain/loss calculations substantially improved for both realism and balance.
  
• Skin Tone decay rate doubled.

• Sweating rate now scales with hydration (from 50% to 150% of the old value, depending on hydration).
  
• Sweating alone now can only increase body Wetness up to 66% max.
  
• Body temperature reduction from Wetness increased (taking a bath is now much better for reducing the heat).
  
• Wetness evaporation rate tweaked to be much slower in some circumstances, so that taking a bath in summer for reducing the heat is definitely viable, as Wetness does no longer decrease too fast.
  
• Wetness increase rate from rain/snow rebalanced (should be lower in most circumstances).
  
• Drinking action now increase Wetness by a tiny bit.

• Fishing chance totally reworked to be more coherent with the Fishing skill and Fish population thereby, and also take into account the Spear condition.
  
• When fishing, while waiting for a fish, the character now has a slight increase in Muscle Soreness and effort (thus minor energy and stamina consumption).
  
• Cleaning Fish action can now reduce or improve the condition of the Fish, based on the Butchering skill.
  
• Guide: added a new page explaining Fishing.

• Skill progression decay is now constant until Stamina drops to 50% or less, then it's amplified, reaching the maximum multiplier (x2) at 0 Stamina; previously it always fully scaled with Stamina.
  
• Skill progression now also decays during sleep.
  
• Skill progression decay rate rebalanced (and, as mentioned in the interface section, is now visible in the character info screen).
  
• Creating a Healing Mush does no longer increase the First Aid skill, but it still requires it.
  
• Total Skill text (in character creation/info screen) now also shows skill decay rate (color changed to light blue), and added a mouse hover text for additional info.

• The Sword requires Crafting skill lv 5+, and 1 Wood + 1 Stick to be crafted.
  
• The Sword deals relatively low damage compared to other weapons, but it's faster (and also deals bleeding).

• Vegetation birth conditions improved to allow plants (both ferns and trees) to take root closer to each other, forming denser forests.
  
• Improvements to vegetation mechanics and interaction with herbivores.

-[Interface] Added floating damage text (shown in yellow) dealt to ANIMALS from non-player sources (animal fights, fire, bleeding, etc); in Survival, the chance of it showing scales with the Zoology skill (reaching 100% chance at 50+ Zoology).
-[Survival] Stumbling lock time reduced from 1.25 sec to 1.0 sec, and made some minor improvements.
-[Survival] Chance of causing Bleeding to animals when attacking is now DIRECTLY amplified by the related skill (either Melee or Ranged), instead of indirectly.
-[Survival] When hitting an obstacle (boulder, wall, mountain) with a melee attack, the weapon/punch will actually impact with it, either damaging the weapon or the player (if bare-handed).
-[Weather] Temperature calculation partly reworked to produce more realistic day-night and seasonal temp fluctuation.
-[Map] Fish reproduction formula reworked: they now reproduce with mild temperature, therefore they're more likely to spawn in Spring or Autumn.
-[Fix][Survival] Fixed saves still affected by the pre-0.88.5 negative carcass butchering progress bug (the actual bug cause was already fixed in v0.88.5).
-[Fix][Survival] Fixed "magical" Arrow becoming stuck in the air when putting it in a Quiver/Backpack (doesn't fix arrows in affected save, just remove them from the quiver and that should fix it).
-[Fix][Survival] Fixed a bunch of bugs regarding items in Backpack.
-[Fix] Fixed several minor issues with the game interface.
-[Fix] Some minor fixes here and there.



These are only the most relevant changes, as always there are tons of other in this update, check the full changelog for the complete list!




Dan

- Minimum framerate (below which the game starts to go in slow-motion, to prevent collision glitches and preserve playability) now scales with graphics quality setting (Low=10, Med=20 and High=30).


- Added a new ripple effect to water reflections, to make them less static and give a better sense of water movement (disabled at "Low" Graphics Quality setting).
- Splash effect at footstep (both Player & animals) from rain is now chance based (from 0% below 25 rain, to 100% above 75 rain), instead of directly triggering at 50+ rain.
- Splash particle effects are slightly more visible.
- Screen sharpen effect tweaked.
- Blood effect on wounded animals improved.
- [Survival] Water splash on ponds from T-Rex footsteps enhanced, and enabled only on "High" Graphics Quality setting.
- [Survival] Minor tweaks to several character action animations.


- Rain sound volume increases more gradually from rain intensity (especially at the initial stages of rain).
- [Survival] T-Rex footsteps now trigger for ALL T-Rexes nearby, not just the nearest one!
- [Survival] T-Rex footsteps sound volume, pitch and screen shake effect tweaked to be more consistant with the animal size.
- [Survival] Added a brief alert sound when trying to create a character with negative creation points.
- [Survival] If playing as female, Wilhelm scream sounds feminine.
- [Survival] Snoring volume slightly reduced.


- [Survival] Right mouse click selection buttons on Tree and Carcass now directly show the quantity of resources gatherable/harvestable (branch, fruits, meat etc), also, unselectable actions for Tree are now shown in grey, instead of being always clickable and triggering a warning hint (or being hidden), and added a tooltip explaining why the action is not accessible.



- [Survival] When chance to gather a fruit is very low, a warning text next to the button notifies it.
- [Survival] Aim reticule during Aim Mode is now only visible if a ranged weapon is equipped.
- [Survival] Removed Carcass mousehover inspect info showing Meat/Pelt/Tendon (because of the aforementioned change).
- [Survival] Species for Carcass, Meat and Egg is now shown in mousehover inspect info, instead of next to the item name.
- [Survival] Added more info beneath the Bleeding icon.
- [Survival] The game now asks for confirmation before eating a spoiled/raw foods (that would cause damage).
- [Survival] Muscle Soreness icon and mousehover text have more stages, to reflect a change (listed in the Survival section), and improved tooltip with better info about the impact on muscle growth/loss.
- [Survival] Added a new loading hint about Muscle Soreness.
- [Survival] Added a new loading hint suggesting that T-Rex are more likely to see you as a prey, if you sprint.
- [Survival] Thatch tooltip is more clear about it being supported.
- [Survival] Action warning text flashes a bit to be more obvious.
- [God] In the fertility list, "zones" renamed to "soil".
- [Survival] Damage text for damage inflicted is now shown in yellow, and with the actual negative value.
- Added a loading hint about year and day duration.
- Added SurvivalVis to game credits (provided useful feedback, check him on YouTube!).
- Minor improvements to loading hints.


- Added an option to disable the sleeping snoring sound in Survival mode.


- [Survival] Attack direction assist is noly enabled with "Control Mode" set to "Keyboard".
- [Survival] Attack direction assist is much more precise and less glitchy.


- When failing a fishing attempt, there is a chance (11% to 33% depending on actual fish pop) fish population decrease in that specific spot (as you might scare the fishes by swinging the spear), and added a hint showing the fish population left.
- Increased (by ~33%) the positive impact of Fishing skill to fishing attempt success chance.
- It is now possible to actually drink sea water, but with minimal hydration gain and substantial damage (the game asks for confirmation before proceeding).
- Base damage from low temperature increased by 20%, but it now scales with Calories, so with high calories it can be up to 50% lower.
- Base damage from high temperature increased by 20%, but it now scales with Hydration, so with high hydration it can be up to 50% lower.
- Bleeding % now reduces healing speed (60% bleeding reduces healing to 40% its normal speed).
- Chance of player inflicting bleeding to animals increased for some weapons.
- Falling damage after being gripped by a T-Rex is now increased by Body Weight, but is reduced Athletics skill.
- Muscle Soreness, when over 25%, now starts to increase the delay of attack and jump actions.
- Cool (at high ambient temp) from regular shelter and cave reduced (from shelter HALVED, from cave reduced by 33%), as survival in hot summer became too easy after the previous update.
- T-Rex footsteps have a much higher chance to wake up the Player, based on their intensity, and insulation from shelter reduces it by 50% max, instead of 66%.
- Chance floating animal action text shows up now reaches 100% at 50+ Zoology, not 100.
- Moving speed reduction from rain is now chance based at footstep (from 0% below 25 rain, to 100% above 75 rain), instead of always triggering at 50+ rain.
- It is now possible to start mouse-dragging an item that is below an empty/green Equip Slot (so you won't need to disable->move->re-enable Equip Mode to pick it).
- Triggering an attack with Attack Stance disabled will enable Attack Stance, if the click or key press is brief, instead of automatically attack (to prevent accidentally attacking when miss-clicking). Holding the button will also trigger the attack as before.
- Screen shake effect when hit by an animal now scales with the animal size, instead of being fixed.
- Melee attack timing and precision improved (especially for the Spear).
- Door opening speed now partly depends on player Strength.
- Pushback inflicted to animal with attacks now scales better with animal size.


- [Survival] When hunting from hunger, T-Rex and Troodon player detection distance now scales with their hunger (when less hungry they won't track the player from too far away).
- [Survival] When hunting from hunger, T-Rex player detection chance is now more reliant on player moving speed (if you stay still or sneak he might just ignore you).
- [Survival] Troodons are much more likely to be scared and flee when the players kills one of their mates (the chance now also depends by the age of the victim: if you kill a helpless newborn they might actually get even angrier and utterly murder you).
- Damage and bleeding inflicted by animals to other animals and player rebalanced and unified (uses a single algoritm that takes into account many variables).
- Troodons called in a hunt by a mate will respond also when sleeping or doing other actions, depending on their Stamina and Energy.
- Animals (aside T-Rex) are slightly faster, especially Troodon.
- Animals damage received from Bleeding doubled (it was extremely low!).
- Males of all species have 50% chance of failing to impregnate the female after mating, leading to potential repeated mating sessions :P.
- T-Rex male and female have more chances to fight instead of mating, if overpopulated.
- Number of eggs layed does no longer scale with the mother's energy.
- Animal migration threshold increased (they decide to migrate after a longer time spent searching for what they needed).
- Animal turning speed tweaked to be slightly more steady and somewhat faster.
- Ankylosaur body is a bit broader, thus their carcass has slightly more meat.
- Changed the calculation of the Health damage from starvation/dehydration, taking into account the potential maximum health; this also fixes newborn (especially herbivors) dying too early from starvation/dehydration.
- Adult Ankylosaur will never eat ferns, even if starving (only babies do).
- Triceratops will never eat young trees, even if starving (not even adults), this (along with the previous change) increases their impact on the vegetation ecology.
- Herbivours will only eat young Taxus trees hungry enough (- Herbivours will no longer see young trees from very far away.
- Herbivours no longer pick their plant food based on plant population (this was implemented as a way to help the ecology balance, but it's redundant now, since the system is much more balanced without needing artificious mechanics).
- Tweaks to quantity of vegetation/meat consumed by animals when eating from a plant/carcass.
- Tweaks to animal hybernation conditions from temperature.
- Carcasses require 20% longer to freeze in the cold.
- Animals now periodically update their Z order, so no smaller animals comes atop of bigger ones.
- Animal roaming pattern and speed improved.


- [Survival] It's no longer possible to completely destroy Trees by gathering all the Leaves/Branches/Resin, there is an energy threshold below which the player can't harvest.
- Trees under 50% energy will get heavy damage from strong wind, which can now fall them down (only the stump is shown, will implement actual trunk in a future update).
- Seeds dropped by fruits will only take root if in their ideal temperature range (previously this applied only to seeds directly dropped by the plant).
- Seeds "stored" in aridity soil now slowly decay over the years.
- Several tweaks to vegetation energy mechanics, to improve long term balance.


- [Survival] Added the "Eat" action button to Pine Cone, although disabled and suggesting to find Palm or Taxus tree for edible fruits (placeholder action for future additions).


- Drought system reworked: it previously decided in advance if there was a Drought, reducing chances of rain during it; now it naturally emerges from the actual seasonal rain chance. Also, the Drought text now shows 3 severity stages (up from 2) and the days since the last rain.
- Seasonal rain chance rebalanced.


- Several tweaks to soil energy mechanics, to improve seasonal changes of terrain.


- Tweaks to pond water evaporation rates.


- Huge optimizations to vegetation and ponds off-screen rendering, improving performance especially on bigger maps!


- [Survival] Fixed a glitch that twisted the character's breast/belly at a different angle compared to the body (also fixes affected saves).
- [Survival] Fixed Butchering action not progressing, but giving negative progress (was happening in cold temperature).
- [Survival] Fixed action "Empty Quiver" removing the arrows, but keeping the Quiver "full" and freezing the player when trying to empty it again (also fixes affected saves).
- [Survival] Fixed flickering mousehover text while mouse-dragging a food that's being cooked.
- [Survival] Fixed critical damage text effect and sound never showing.
- [Survival] Fixed "creepy" music also playing (at lower volume) while character is sleeping.
- [Survival] Fixed player action menu being acessible from the "G" key also while attacking or in attack delay.
- [Survival] Fixed Spear with Fish attached sometimes not dropping it on attack animation.
- [Survival] Fixed skill texts in the character info screen not showing the full text if the skill is lvl 100 @ -100% advancement.
- [Survival] Fixed pulled carcass rotating also during game pause.
- [Survival] Fixed a rare instance when loading a save while the character was eating resulted in the character stuck forever (also fixes affected saves).
- [Survival] Fixed a rare instance when triggering a ranged attack caused the player to be permanently unable to do any action outside moving and dragging items (also fixes affected saves).
- [Survival] Fixed Aim Mode sometimes not stopping after game pause, although not holding down the key/RMB.
- [Survival] Fixed character's footprints being enabled also with Graphics Quality set to "Low", when only supposed to be with "Medium"+.
- Fixed tree shadows being enabled (but not getting updated in intensity) with Graphics Quality set to "Medium", when only supposed to be with "High".
- Fixed water wave effect being re-enabled with Graphics Quality set to "Medium" after the game takes a snapshot, when only supposed to be with "High".
- Fixed Fruit spawning new trees nearby when eaten by player or animals (was not intended).
- Fixed young Ferns often growing way faster than intended.
- Fixed tree fire occasinally not being on top of the tree canopy.
- Fixed a very rare bug that caused a tree to spawn 2 canopies, instead of 1.
- Fixed Carcass labeled as "freezing" while ambient temp is warm (for few seconds after being created).
- [Workaround] Migrating animals, if stuck in front of a mountain, will give up the migration and move away, instead of stubbornly hit the mountain (this is just a workaround, I'll implement a proper fix in a future update).
- Fixed newborn dying too early from starvation/dehydration.
- Fixed inspected animal showing "Reaching Meat" when it's actually Fish.
- Fixed inspected baby T-Rex showing "Chasing a male" when it's following the mother.
- Fixed Windows showing a red square instead of the game icon on some systems.
- Fixed Thatch not showing mouse hover text color (representing its condition).
- Fixed the game notifying "save updated" at game loaded even with no actual update.
- Fixed Guide unpausing the game if accessed from the exit menu.
- Minor fixes I forgot to write.


- Game info (accessed with F3) now show some more details about blood decals.

- Minimum framerate raised to 20 (from 5), below which the game starts to go in slow motion (to prevent collision glitches and preserve playability).


- [Survival] Minor improvements to movement animations.


- Removed timescale-dependency for audio (that's what caused the infamous memory leak!).


- [Survival] Sprint icon is visible just for the first half second of sprinting, then fades away.


- Maximum jump height reachable with stats/athletics increased, as well as reduced the minimum one (sorry fatty character's players :p).
- Improved footstep logic (decides better when/how to trigger footstep splash effects, sounds and footprints).
- Vitamins decay rate reduced by 33%.


- Palm energy gain from terrain reduced (to nerf their population on the long run).


- [Survival] A well insulated shelter now offers some cool, if the ambient temp is torrid (the effect is doubled in a cave, as it's much cooler).
- [Survival] Cave now offers less protection from cold ambient temp (the previous change made it overpowered and potentially preferrable over a proper built shelter).


- At island generation, initial dry pond beds are now comparatively smaller than ones with actual water.


- Fixed a nasty lag occurring after few minutes of game time on some systems (caused by a memory leak).
- Fixed dry pond beds not shrinking in some rare circumstances (like when no actual pond was on the map).
- [Survival] Fixed Wood and Stone Wall tooltips having the Building skill requirement swapped (Wood is 5+, Stone is 10+).
- [Survival] Fixed "Get Fruit" hint occasionally suggesting that Pine/Taxus produce fruit in mild temperature, when temp is actually mild.

Hello survivors! I have bad and a good news for ya...

The last hotfix (v0.88.1) fixed the major bugs, some of which were introduced in the 0.88 update.

There is however an issue with performance: some players report performance decresed after v0.88, I've tested myself and indeed seems there is some sort of memory leak appearing after few minutes of playtime.

The good new is I can fix it! The bad one is that in order to fix it, next update will break save compatibility once again...

I'm trying my best to workaround the issue preserving backsave compatibility, but can't guarantee anything.

Just wanted to let you know, I'll release the fix probably later tonight if everything goes right, so expect your saves to get earsed as soon as you update (maybe no longer the case, read above).