DinoSystem News

Hello there!

It's been a long time! I just wanted to let you know I'm working on the next update, and it's a big one.

Quick summary (subject to changes):

-Didelphodon (small mammal)
-Craftable waterskin
-Tool repairing and quality system
-Improved survival balance
-Reworked soreness and other survival mechanics
-Improved ecology balance
-Bug fixes (as always)

The extensive, WIP changelog will be released in few days in the changelogs section of the forum. About the update, there is no fixed ETA, as I'm still in the middle of adding the Didelphodon, and each new species makes the ecosystem harder and harder to balance (without implementing artificial balancing mechanics, which I try to avoid). The survival mode changes will be most likely appreciated, especially the ability to repair items and the reworked muscle soreness.

See you soon!


Dan

[h3]This is a minor update that includes some balance tweaks and various small improvements, as well as several important fixes.

I've decided to release this before the actual v0.91 (which will add a new animal, the Didelphodon) to address those issues as soon as possible, since the next major update is still in the works and requires some weeks.[/h3]



- [Survival] When moved during actions (es: components moved on build spot during building), items gradually slide towards the intended spot, instead or being magically teleported.
- [Survival] Various improvements to some action animations.


- [Survival] Added a contracting red circle on the cursor showing attack delay time.
- [Survival] Minor improvements to some interface actions.
- [Survival] Minor improvements to the actions progression text.
- [Survival] Planted seed now has a mouse hover text.
- [Survival] Fish meat is now called "Fish", instead of "Meat (fish)".
- [Survival] Sword cursor improved.


- Actions like Carving, Cleaning and Cracking have their progress remembered when they are interrupted, so they are resumed as soon as the action is restarted for that object; this does not yet apply to Crafting and Building, though (will work on that eventually).
- Actions progress, when interrupted and resumed, is reduced by 10%.
- Damage auto-inflicted during actions requiring a sharpen tool slightly increased.
- Digging skill has a much greater impact on the related actions speed (but base speed reduced).


- [Survival] Animals will no longer chase a food that is being used by the Player for an action (es: cleaning Fish, planting Fruit, etc).
- Male Triceratops, when in heat, are aggressive towards all other species that come close enough.
- Young T-Rex will now chase and eat Meat/Fish when younger than 25 days old (up from 18).


- Reduced damage to Stone Wall from animal collision by ~33%, and improved building tooltip.


- [Survival] Increased damage taken by Stones retrieved from dismantling a Fire Pit (from -5 to -10).
- Stick/Torch decay 50% slower than simple Branch.


- Minor performance optimizations.


- [Survival] Fixed sword cursor icon getting stuck when dropping a weapon from the back slot.
- [Survival] Fixed hint telling to disable Sneaking with the actual Combat Stance toggle key.
- [Survival] Fixed hint telling to disable Sneaking triggering while not actually sneaking.
- [Survival] Fixed bloated hint not appearing when trying to drink rain while Fullness close to 100%.
- [Survival] Fixed being able to access the Player action menu while colliding with animals/obstacles.
- [Survival] Trees can now be interacted with also when on top of carcasses and other objects.
- [Survival] Skeletons can now be interacted with also when on water.
- Fixed a bug that caused vegetation to take root MUCH less likely on some terranis, when they were supposed to have good chance.
- Fixed Fire Pit stones being shown above carcasses.

-[God] Minimum zoom expanded by 2x.


- Animal sound produced when poisoned has pitch increased if it's young, just as other sounds.


-[Survival] Combat Stance message will now also show when enabling it by equipping a weapon.
-[Survival] Added new hints for disabling Combat Stance and Sneaking.
-[Survival] Improved hints appearing when failing at lighting fire.
-[Survival] Minor changes to some game messages.
- Debug info (toggled with F3) text format improved.


-[Survival] Changes to Control Mode/Mouse Attack options and Combat Stance:

• Control Mode "Mixed" setting replaced with "Standard" (which is now the default setting). Standard is like Keyboard, but the character turns with the mouse only when in Combat Stance, to make melee combat more intuitive and less frustrating.
  
• Mouse Attack now only triggers during Combat Stance, for both RMB and LMB.
  
• Mouse Attack option is now ON by default.
  
• Improved tooltips for Control Mode and Mouse Attack options.
  
• In Combat Stance, mouse cursor turns into a sword.
  
• Combat Stance is now disabled also when removing a weapon in Equip Mode, dropping it when hit by a dinosaurs and when using the left hand to hold an item.
  
• When enabling Combat Stance, any item held with the left hand is dropped.
  
• If Control Mode is "Standard" or "Keyboard", new character starts by facing the shore instead of the mouse.

-[Survival] Pressing ESC will directly show the Exit Menu while the player was in selection/crafting mode, instead of just interrupting it, and will now also interrupt Pulling.


- Chance to be cut/hit/bruised during various actions now scales with current health (by 60%), simulating increased awareness while in life danger; to balance this, the chance reduction from the related skill has been decreased from -80% to -66% (at max skill lvl).
- Skill progression decay rate decreased by ~10% (reverted change from latest update).
- Athletics/Endurance/Toughness/Digging skills increase rate slightly reduced.
- Wetness increase from rain rebalanced again to be MUCH SLOWER under poor cover (like trees), instead of reaching and mantaining 100% Wetness.
- Temperature reduction from exposition to snow is no longer reduced by Wetness (was not intended, should be considered bugfix).
- Wetness threshold after which firemaking become impossible increased from 66% to 100% (which means being wet is less punitive for lighting fire).
- Fire Pit reduces negative impact to firemaking from Wind Exposure by 50%.
- Firemaking action progression slightly reduced, to balance after the above changes.
- Finding water by digging on a lakebed will now shrink it, instead of expand it.
- Expanding a lakebed by digging will now slowly spill some of its water away.
- Added subtle screen shake when landing from a jump or a push (intensity depends on body weight).
- Added a tiny easter egg for the female character :D.


- Animals now also de-facto receive damage from poisonous Mushrooms (depending on color), instead of just reacting to it.
- Newborn animal gender selection is now more random (but still partially based on gender discrepancy in the species, which is needed because of the low population represented in DinoSystem).


- Damage magnitude from poisonous Mushrooms is no longer totally random, but it too depends on the color (with a slightly random coefficient). This means if, for example, a green mushroom is just mildly poisonous, you'll want to remember for the next time that green can be relatively safe (especially if cooked).
- Mushroom spores can now be preserved in arid terrain (just like vegetation seeds), and released when the aridity turns into fertility.
- Mushroom "organism" propagation system revisited, to allow it spreading more naturally.
- Spawning chance for edible Mushrooms increased.
- Reduced chance vegetation seeds "preserved" in arid terrain decay every ingame year.


- Volcano shape and collision box improved (more coherent with its actual borders).


-[Survival] Tutorial setting doesn't automatically disable in Realistic+ difficulty, it just doesn't show it, you can still create a new character and follow the tutorial in Normal difficulty without having to re-enable the setting.
-[Survival] Various small improvements to the Survival tutorial.


-[Survival] Fixed Player Creation Screen not reporting the character weight contribution from Body Muscle, and showing a much lower Body Weight.
-[Survival] Fixed pressing the attack key/button while Pulling, enabling Combat Stance without interrupting Pulling (and showing 2 right arms).
-[Survival] Fixed particle effect showing on the right shoulder instead of the hand, when gathering from tree or rock.
-[Survival] Fixed some minor character animation issues.
-[Survival] Fixed some possible bugs in the Survival tutorial.
- Fixed zooming with the mouse wheel allowing to zoom out indefinitely (sorry had to fix it, but zooming in God mode has been expanded!).
- Fixed "Missing cursor text" appearing on mousehover over Mushrooms in some circumstances.
- Fixed Carcasses generated at new game not showing the animal species name when inspected with X/MMB.
- Fixed a rare instance where animals could have Thirst < 0 after eating, for a few seconds.
- Fixed a rare instance where animals could get stuck with the "puking" animation, especially after loading a save.
- Fixed "Credits" and "Resolution" pages having their text and buttons not aligned with the background.
- Fixed application icon not always showing as intended.

- 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