DinoSystem News

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).

- [Survival] Several improvements to character animations.
- Stone/Wood Wall sprites blend better together.
- Blood terrain decals size tweaked, and if on water, spawns a red splash effect.


- [Survival] Added variation to the jump sound (based on actual breath level).
- [Survival] Added more subtle variation to footstep sound (based on terrain).
- Many sounds (like landing, swinging) change volume/pitch based on player/animal weight.
- Pond sound volume is more subtle if the pond is small.
- More minor audio improvements.


- [Survival] While building, the game now shows the actual translucent sprite of the structure that is being built.
- [Survival] Structures placement improved (and walls can now be built on top of others).
- [Survival] Wood Door is highlighted also while opened/closed by the player.


- [Survival] Fixed baby T-Rex/Troodon being often untamable, while still showing the "Animal tamed!" hint (this bug haunted me for years!).
- [Survival] Fixed the game not saving before quitting in Rogue-lite difficulty, and improved the save system (another long standing bug, now gone!).
- [Survival] Fixed a bunch of nasty bugs related to character movement/animation while performing actions.
- [From v0.88.0] [Survival] Fixed Fish disappearing as soon as it is caught.
- [From v0.88.0] [Survival] Fixed butchering carcass for Pelt or Tendon always resuming from ~99% progress, after succesfully completing the action a first time with that carcass.
- [From v0.88.0] [Survival] Fixed Wood Door not being built in the exact choosen spot.
- [From v0.88.0] [Survival] Fixed carving Stone action producing, along with the intended Sharpstone, 2 small stones.
- [From v0.88.0] [AI] Fixed a small calculation error that forced youngster T-Rex to attack any animal approaching a carcass he was guarding, even if much stronger than him.
- [From v0.88.0] [Audio] Fixed a subtle intermittent noise playing during game pause (also during exit menu, character screen etc).

Savegames are automatically deleted due to the different way the new version handles some core mechanics.
If you have a current game you don't want to lose, don't update now, but finish your game first.

• Female can be finally selected at character creation screen, with gameplay, visual and audio differences.
  
• Female is physically weaker than male (has less Strength/Health from Body Muscle, and slightly overall, meaning that in a muscle-less character the gender difference is subtle, but with high muscles it is evident).
  
• Female consumes less calories and is comparably lighter than male.
  
• Female has skills advancement decay speed HALVED, making her much better at retaining/increasing proficiencies.
  
• Added "Randomize" button in character creation, allowing to fully randomize the character (both appearence and proficiencies).

• Added a new button in the God panel: "Add Animal".
  
• Pressing "Add Animal" allows to select species and gender of the animal, and release it with LMB (left mouse button).
  
• God tutorial updated to cover the new feature.

• Birds fly when the player or an animal passes by, as well as when the tree catches fire, is struck by lightning or is chopped down.
  
• Birds population is simulated via game logic, not directly (like for other animals), and depends on many variables (like number of trees, their age, energy etc).
  
• Birds, for now, cannot interact with game world (just like pterosaurs), but they enrich the atmosphere and give a hint about the ecosystem health.

• Not all species now mate in the same season: Triceratops and T-Rex in late winter, Ankylosaurs and Troodons in spring.
  
• Most animals will now mate a single time during the mating season (but this varies depending on the species, gender and Alpha rank).
  
• Egg incubation time reduced to 6 ingame days (instead of 10).
  
• Egg number produced by each species rebalanced.
  
• Changed how Triceratops choose their alpha male, which is based now on who's the most successfull in fights (expect to see much more violent fight during the mating season).
  
• Only the Alpha Triceratops can mate now.
  
• Alpha male/female has slightly more HP.

• Animals are now able to fight each other in many more occasions, since combat events are now "unified" in the code!
  
• Added plenty of animal reactions (both offensive and defensive) to make use of the aforementioned change (more to come).
  
• Animals will pick their targed based on many variables (just like when hunting) like target armor, population and action.
  
• Animals are more reactive to possible threats or opportunities (more to come).
  
• Damage dealt and received tweaked for balance.
  
• This is still a WIP, expect more improvements to animal combat AI and potential situations!

• Wood Wall requires Building skill lvl 5, as well as 5 Wood and 10 Resin.
  
• Wood Wall offers the same insulation of Stone Wall, but, just like Wood Door, degrades from humidity and weather, and receives more damage from Animals.
  
• Stone Wall now requires 5 Dung to be built, instead of 5 Resin.

• Structures are repairable also beyond 50% condition (in that case the action is called "Reinforce") depending on Building skill (up to 90% condition).
  
• The speed of the repair/reinforce action is also influenced by the structure damage level: more damage requires more time to fix up.
  
• The amount of condition increased after the repair/reinforce action is now fixed (and still scales with the quality of the components used, and the starting structure condition).

• Island size increased by ~20%, also, Landmass value in new game screen now ranges from 10% to 100% (instead of 50-150%).
  
• Island size and jagging are more coherent with the settings choosen in the new game screen.
  
• Mountains, ponds, terrains and vegetation initial placement at island generation improved.
  
• Cave generation improved to fix potential collision issues.

- [Interface] Mouse hover texts are now shown also in God Mode (and also when the game is paused).
- [Survival] Skill decay is now ALWAYS enabled (regardless of difficulty), but base decay speed reduced (in addition to the aforementioned 50% reduction for Female).
- [Survival] Removed the character "angle lock" after performing an attack (introduced in the previous v0.85.0 update). This feature was annoying and served a purpose which is no longer necessary after the Stumbling changes mentioned below.
- [Survival] Stumble conditions changed: instead of stumbling only when moving backwards after jumping/attacking, it always happens in those two circumstances (also when moving forward), and chances are higher when moving backwards/sprinting.
- [Survival] Chance to stumble reduced globally to 50% (and is now even lower in Normal difficulty).
- [Survival] Micronutrients renamed to Vitamins, specifically B, C and D (the 3 most important).
- [Survival] Butchering actions (get Meat/Pelt/Tendon) can be resumed if interrupted, instead of always starting from 0% (if the carcass is eaten by an animal, the advancement shrinks).
- [Audio] All game sounds are now timescale-dependent, meaning if the game runs in slow motion (like during Equip Mode), you hear sounds in slow motion (and vice-versa). If timescale is too fast (10x or more) sounds are silenced.
- [Audio] Added a new ambience sounds and improved some existing ones.
- [AI] Animals will now "migrate" to a different zone of the island when looking for a particular thing, they used to just wander randomly, now they try to evaluate which zone of the island may offer what they're in need for.
- [Objects] Objects decay rate rebalanced and reduced globally by ~25% (some like player tools and clothes by over 50%!).
- [Objects] Some items (like Wood/Branch) no longer decay if dry and sheltered from the weather.
- [Objects] When a BIG Stone is destroyed, it now ALWAYS produces 2 SMALL ones with 50% condition (unless it is broken on purpose by the player, then the condition depends on the original Stone).
- [Tutorial] General minor Tutorial improvements.
- [Fix] MANY FIXES - Check the full changelog below...

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

Hello there! (read it with Obi-Wan's voice, if you recall this scene :p)

First and foremost, I want to thank everyone who played and plays DinoSystem and is giving me feedback and bug reports. I'm astonished by the good reviews the game is getting, I never thought a substantial number of players would appreciate the game, which started as a passion project and is very niche in gameplay and art style.

I also need to apologize for the lack of news and updates in the last 10 months, I've never stopped working on DinoSystem during this time, I've just progressed extremely slowly, due to my full-time job, and never felt confident enough to release the work done as an actual update, at least so far.

I'm here to announce I've partially quit that job (turning it into a part-time one), in order to be completely absorbed by DS development once again.

And about the next update, it is nearly ready: expect it to be released sometime between 31 October to 7th November!


- Gender selection, with actual gameplay differences: playing as female has its pros and cons

- Deep improvements to animal AI, with more interactions between species and co-specifics

- Ability to introduce animals in God Mode

- Wooden walls buildable in Survival Mode

- Bigger island and improved island generation

- Birds flocks (visual effect, but with actual simulated mechanics)

- Tons, tons of smaller improvements, balance tweaks and bug fixes





Expect a full (and still WIP) changelog to be released few days before the update.

See you soon!


Daniel

But it's still advised to start a new game, as some changes could potentially cause glitches.


FULL CHANGELOG









- "Absolute" renamed to "Keyboard", which controls the character moving direction with the keyboard input (as before), but now it applies ALSO to the character angle. KEYBOARD is now the default option when the game is first started.
- "Relative" renamed to "Mouse", and works the same as before.
- Added a new option called "Mixed", which is like "Keyboard", but retains the ability to turn the character with the mouse (same as "Absolute" before this update).
- When triggering a melee attack from the Keyboard, the character will automatically turn towards a close-range frontal target (check the survival section for more info about it).
- Removed the possibility to bind a key for changing the Control Mode (default was T), as it was unnecessary and could be pressed by mistake, confusing new players.







- Presets are pre-defined starting character builds.
- Presets are a good starting point to build your character pursuing a specific playstyle.
- There are five presets: Default, Survivor, Hunter, Runner and Tanker, each with its pros and cons, and more will probably be added in future updates.







- When triggering a melee attack from the Keyboard, the character will automatically turn towards a close-range frontal target (animal or tree) before performing the attack. If attacking from LMB (left mouse) or in Ranged, the attack direction is still fully mouse controlled.
- When hitting a target (melee) or when firing a projectile (ranged), the character cannot turn for the duration of the attack delay (red attack bar), preventing him/her from exploiting the turning mechanics and limit/avoid stumbling.
- Attack precision and collision detection vastly improved.
- Wind impact on projectile trajectory reduced and rebalanced to have a minimum wind power threshold.
- It is now possible to hit trees with all weapons (even with the punch!) dealing a small damage to the trunk and potentially chopping down small trees, but doing that without a cutting weapon triggers a hint suggesting to use an Axe/Sharpstone instead.







- Animal energy/water/stamina expenses rebalanced.
- Number of eggs layed per species rebalanced, and it no longer scales with species population.
- Fighting/hunting events outcome rebalanced and made minor tweaks.
- Energy/water gained from food rebalanced, and eating action improved.
- Triceratops and Ankylosaurs feeding preferenced tweaked to let them occupy slightly differenct ecological niches.
- Improved how the game evaluates how well every species is doing, taking into account more parameters.
- Removed some artificial balance enforcing mechanics, as they're no longer necessary.
- Tweaks to the animals aging system.
- Some rebalancing to animals generation at game start.





- Predators are now much better at evaluating which animals they should hunt, taking into account more parameters and with less restrictions (previously, they only hunter members of the more numerous species).
- T-Rex can now grip and carry away a small carcass, if they see another T-Rex nearby, in order to feast on it alone.
- Male Troodon will now stay close to his partner after mating, and help her protect the nest.
- Improved how mothers guard their nest.







- Triceratops and Troodons now have Alpha male/female, which can lead the pack and take some decisions.
- The Alpha specimen is usually the strongest and/or oldest member of the pack.
- Triceratops have harsh confrontations to decide who'll become the Alpha male.
- The Alpha male/female has slightly more vivid colors.







- Animals hibernate in three occasions: when they cannot find/water food and are starving/dehydrated, when their species is close to extinction and they can't find a fertile mate, and during a particularly cold winter (only Troodons).
- While hibernating, the ZZZ sleeping icon is red.
- While hibernating, Stamina is always 0 and the metabolic functions are slowed down to 1/5, allowing the animal to endure starvation, hydration or lack of fertile mates.
- While hibernating, the animal can still be awakened by attacks or other events (receiving a Stamina boost).
- If starving/dehydrated during hibernation, the animal has a chance to wake up for some time (receiving a Stamina boost), in order to find what it needs.







- When performing certain actions, animals now show a pop-up text next to their head with the action name.
- The actions shows are: fleeing, eating/drinking, falling asleep, waking up, mating, laying eggs, winning/losing a fight, and few others.
- In Survival mode, the action text is shows with a chance equal to the character Zoology skill.
- In God mode, the action text is always shown.






- [Survival] Added dynamic mist effect, which is only visible in Survival mode, but depends on actual weather variables.

- Clouds effect improved and made more vivid overall (plus more weather visual improvements).
- Major optimizations to clouds, cloud reflections and cloud shadows logic.
- Asteroid chance decreased by 15% for "Likely", and by 100% for "Unlikely" (which is now REALLY unlikely!).
- [Survival] Items are now highlighted when the mouse is over them.
- [Survival] Skills at -100% progress now have a chance to decay when the player is exhausted (low Stamina) and when receiving damage (chance based), instead of just instantly decaying when passing out (at 0 Stamina).
- [Survival] When performing actions like gathering, drinking and eating while having both hands holding item/s, the character will drop them from the right hand ONLY for the duration of the action and take them back as soon as the action is finished, instead of keeping them on the ground, which forced the player to manually retake them.
- Various improvements to the movement system and pathfinding, making animals turn more smoothly and follow their mother/partner/peer more efficiently.
- [Survival] Fixed (finally!!) the infamous "permanent auto-walking while drinking" bug (also fixes corrupted saves).
- Fixed animals sometimes repeatedly bumping into an obstacle (wall, boulder) while trying to reach a target (like food or prey) which is on the other side of the obstacle.




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