DinoSystem News

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 (just die :P).


FULL CHANGELOG





It's been a long time since the last update, and that's not the first time: as you have noticed, updates are being released less and less frequently, but they're also getting bigger. As I've pointed out in the previous announcement, the main reason is the fact I'm currently a lone developer, working on every aspect of the game by myself, and that's not necessarly a bad thing! The second reason is I'm a perfectionist, I'm very slow when it comes to adding new content or features, as I want to make sure every little detail is in place.

That said, I'm here to reassure you that, although updates are not being released on a monthly basis as in the past, the development is going well, and the today's update testifies it! I'm more comfortable releasing bigger updates more occasionally than following a schedule, even if that means having to postpone the full version.






Finally, you're now able to build a door, a wooden one. You can open or close it with the mouse, and when closed, it offers a nice Insulation bonus, if there are walls adjacent to it. Here the details:

- You need 5 Wood and 10 Resin to build a Wooden Door.
- Wooden Door can be opened or closed by mouse-dragging it (when close enough).
- Wooden Door offers an insulation bonus, if closed, but only if it adjoins two walls.
- Wooden Door, unlike Stone Wall, slowly degrades from weather and is consumed by fire.








- Insulation from clothes is now separate from the one from walls/boulders.
- Added a new icon in the Survival UI (just on top of the insulation icon) showing clothes insulation.
- Insulation given by a Wall is now amplified if it adjoins other walls, rewarding proper build planning.
- Insulation impact on several player effects (wind protection, temperature, etc) adjusted to the new system.
- Various balance tweaks to the character insulation system.








- All seasons now last the same amount of days (9).
- Day start is now dynamic based on day length, instead of always starting at 5 AM.
- Dawn and sunset events look better and last for the same amount of time.
- Added new screen alerts for the longest and shortest days of the year.
- Temperature fluctuation according to time of day and season tweaked to be more realistic.
- Seasonal rain chance tweaked to be more balanced.
- Various balance tweaks to the seasons system.








- The way the Player tames a baby Troodon is now slightly different and less restricted; you need to mouse-drag the meat/fish and wait for the animal to approach.
- In order to tame, Troodon's mother now can be alive, but not too close.
- A message now shows when a Troodon is approaching to you to tame it (assuming you're still mouse-dragging the meat/fish).
- Troodons that are just born (assuming you have 50+ Zoology and the mother is not close) have now always 100% chance to be tamed (by giving them meat/fish).
- Tamed Troodons hitting Walls will no longer damage them.
- Tamed Troodons helping you in combat can sprint faster.
- When the player dies, tamed Troodons cease being tamed.
- Some minor improvements to the Taming system.








- Hair can now grow really long, and have better graphics.
- Hair length is now shown/changed via percentage (0% to 200%), instead of stages (Bald/Half/Full).



- Hair give a small temperature bonus, based on the length (but it's nullified by Wetness).



- Hair length influence the character Wetness increase and drying speed.
- Hair is now burned by fire (if the character catched it), and will never regrow again.
- Hair growth speed tweaked to be more balanced.
- At character creation, initial Skin Tone and Hair Color are now tied, to have more chances a character with darker skin has also dark hair (and vice-versa).






- [Survival] Added a new character alerts system, showing changes in the character's body stats and skills in green/red (based on positive/negative).



- Timescale buttons reworked and moved to the God Mode interface panel, and New Character button moved to the God Mode interface panel.






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

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 (just die :P).


FULL CHANGELOG






One of the most common suggestions, both in the forums and from my friends who play the game, has been the time scale: a day used to pass way too quickly and the player didn't have the time to do even the basic things like gathering enough materials to build a wall or light a fire.

Well, no more!

In this update time scale has been doubled, along with everything connected to it.

But why did I take so long to make this change? After all, it seems like a mondaine and quick thing to do, in other games it's often just matter of tweaking a variable! The problem is, when I started working on DinoSystem, until few months ago, the code that regulated the weather, vegetation, animal AI and survival mechanics was not intended to scale with the time scale, this means that if i change the time scale, plants continued to produce seeds at the same rate, animals become tired and slept after the same time as well as the player, and so on.

DinoSystem is a complex and emergent ecosystem simulation and that's the price to pay for it: I had to rebalance EVERYTHING and tie it to the time scale, so that in future it will be possible for the player to change it as well, if I'll happen to decide to include this option.






Some animals (mainly Troodons) will now sleep together, they used to find a sleeping spot (like a tree), and go each beneath their own personal (or "troodonal") tree. They'll now stick together to stay more protected, same for baby Triceratops, who sleep with the herd, and Tyrannosaurs, who always sleep with their mother (until they're old enough to go on their own).



Along with this, many AI improvements have been made, the more relevant are:

- If you're hitting an animal, and it is dying, a nearby predator, if hungry, may decide to help you out (in order to steal the kill, and the meal).
- Predators will no longer hunt the player if he's close to a fire (that is big enough to scare them).
- Tyrannosaurs will now even hunt adult Troodons if hungry (previously they only hunted youngsters).
- Mommy Tyrannosaur, when a Troodon attacks one of her youngs or steals one of her eggs, has a chance to attack it (if sleeping the chance is lower).
- Troodons are better at evaluating when and if stealing an egg from a nest is a good idea.
- All animals are much better at searching for what they're looking for.
- Predators are better at chasing their preys.



Overall animals are now more efficient nearly at everything, which reduces their chance of extinction and makes them a more serious threat in Survival Mode.






Several players pointed out that since the ecosystem in DinoSystem is simulated, and species can go extinct, they had no idea whether killing an animal would drive its species to extinction or not; until now.

I've added a new section in the character info screen (the one enabled with Tab) called "Ecosystem", which allows to check the animal population. The info shown are not super accurate, but they depend on your Zoology skill: the higher the skill, the more accurate the info, think of it as an estimatation (unless Zoology is maxed out). This feature will be expanded in future updates to cover more aspects of the island ecology.








Mountains cast shadows now, as well as the character from a fire. Also, the spear sprite along with minor things have been redone to be more consistant with the other item's quality. There are several other small visual enhancements in this update, you can find them in the full changelog.








- [Survival] It is now possible to start Left Mouse dragging an item that is equipped in a character hand slot (during Equip Mode).
- When inspecting an animal, if it is a young specimen, instead of showing the "Heat" it shows "Parented", which tells you if the animal is protected by the mother or the herd/pack (in Survival Mode you still need a Zoology skill treshold to see it).
- Dead fishes will now occasionally arenate on the beach.
- Eggs receive less damage from weather and low temperature if they're on a nest (even if it's not underground).
- The island shape generated is more consistant with the choosen settings.
- Added two arrows on top of the tutorial window, allowing to skip or replay each chapter of the tutorial (both Survival and God).








- Fixed some screen recording softwares not being able to record the game.
- Fixed a bug that caused ponds to evaporate much faster in some circumstances.
- Fixed glitched animal fighting/mating animations.
- Fixed eating raw/spoiled food giving negative Toguhness skill, instead of increasing it.
- Fixed a rare bug that prevented the player from gathering stones, leaves etc.

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





I would like to discuss about the future of the game development, but this is probably not the time nor the space to do it. I'll post an announcement in the next days!




Dan

But starting a new game is always recommended, as the amount of changes is massive.


VIDEO DEVLOG FULL CHANGELOG






- Added a new skill: Digging, which influences actions like unearthing/burying objects, creating paths and expanding pond beds.
- Right clicking on a pond or pond bed allows to perform a new action: expand the pond bed, which requires a Shovel and is influenced by the Digging skill.
- By expanding the pond bed, you can allow it to contain more water (when it rains) or, if it is dry, you can find some water still preserved beneath it.








- To create a Path, go in the Craft/Build screen and select "Path": you need Digging lvl 10 and a Shovel, no other components are required.
- Path allows to move fast when terrain condition would prevent it, it also serves for orientation.
- Paths gradually fade away over time as nature reclaims the land (especially with rain), but using them prevents it.
- Movement speed is now influenced also by terrain condition (such as snow or water).








- While performing a search action (get leaves, branches, stones, resin etc) hold down the Sprint key (default Shift) to automatically repeat the action.
- Since this function allows to search in a faster fashion, drop chances, skill increase and effort spent have been reduced to balance it.
- Some additional improvements to the search actions.








- The formula used to calculate maximum Health no longer takes into consideration Metabolism.
- Health recovery now scales 100% with Calories and Hydration: this means if you have 0 of one of them, there is no Health recovery; to balance this, Health damage from low Calories/Hydration has been strongly nerfed.
- The formula used to calculate maximum Stamina now takes into consideration the Endurance skill as well, and less Metabolism.
- Stamina recovery while sleeping now partially scales with maximum Stamina: this means a very long Stamina bar won't take too much to refill, and a very small one won't refill too quickly.
- The formula used to calculate maximum Fullness now takes into consideration body muscle mass (ratio is 4x from metabolism, 3x from fat, 1x from muscle).
- Some additional improvements to the character metabolic mechanics.





- If not holding items with the right hand, most weapons will now be used with 2 hands, dealing more damage and pushback.
- Added the ability to bury dinosaur skeletons (need a Shovel).
- Small trees can now be cut down also with a BIG Sharpstone.
- Many other improvements and minor additions.








- Fixed the infamous bug that caused the character to get stuck when pulling a carcass and on some obstacles!
- Fixed a bug in the animal AI that caused animals to sometimes get stuck not knowing what to do.
- Added a workaround that makes a tree shadow invisible if it is too intense and the character is beneath it, which can prevent the player from seeing a damn thing.
- Fixed Wood never turning into Charcoal when burning, as supposed to.
- Fixed character sprite turning (towards mouse cursor) being glitchy and inaccurate.

These were only the most important fixes, there are tons of other fixes in this update, check the full changelog for the complete list!




Dan

But starting a new game is always recommended.




FULL CHANGELOG





The system now uses W, A, S, D (default keys) to move the character directly towards the direction of the related key (or key combination), just like in the game "Notrium", this means that there is no longer the need to use A and D to turn the character, and direction change is instant. Also, character body always faces the mouse position, so you can keep attacking in a particular direction while moving in another.

In "Normal" difficulty you can now sprint while facing the opposing direction of your movement, but in "Realistic" difficulty, you still can't sprint backwards. While moving backwards, attacking or jumping give you a chance to stumble, depending on your Athletics skill and other factors; meaning you no longer stumble just for moving backwards, but only if attacking or jumping while doing so.

In addition to this, an option has been added in the controls settings screen to change the movement direction from "Absolute" (using directly the keys), to "Relative" (moving towards the mouse position, like the the old "Mouse Turn" system, but improved).



There are also many minor improvements to the movement animations and mechanics. This should finally solve one of the main problems most players have with the game, that is pointed out in many reviews (both negative and positive) and that really prevented some users from enjoying DinoSystem!






Added a new option in the Settings screen (enabled by default) that automatically names map zones as you explore them in Survival Mode (you can always rename them later). To allow new characters enjoy this feature, a new option has been added in the character creation screen "Reset Zones" (disabled by default) that allows to reset all map zone names when starting a new Survival adventure in an existing game.




Also, the previous "Map Names" option in the new game screen has been renamed to "Map Zones", and can be set either "Unexplored" or "Explored", the latter only selectable if starting in God Mode.

There are many minor improvements to the Map Zones system, like new zone names (if the auto-name option is enabled) and new fixes.






A system has been implemented (only in Survival Mode) that prevents generating tree canopy sprites when they're too far from your view: this should improve the performance, because the game won't have to calculate all island tree canopies with their wind movement and fake-3D parallax (variables and tree "biology" is in the "shadow" sprite, so no worries!).

Many minor optimizations have been done to try improving the performance, but should be counter-balanced by the increased depth of the game mechanics.






As always, there are many additional tweaks, improvements and fixes in this update, check the full changelog for the complete list!




Dan

Hello survivalists!


I feel that time has come to change the way movement controls work in DinoSystem's survival mode.

Several players reported that the current system is very unintuitive in the forums and youtube videos, also most of the negative reviews point that out.

Frankly, that's something I've always wanted to tackle, the problem was I never felt confident enough to try reworking it and replace it with something better, but no more!

There is one problem: the new system will fully replace the old one, so the few players who are fine with the current movement system will have to adapt.




Should the new system be like Notrium (a survival game very similiar to DinoSystem)? Some players suggested me that, and as a big fan of that game I'm inclined to agree.

Please give me ideas and feedback so I can take the best decision; this is an important change and I totally need as much feedback as possible to avoid repeating the same mistakes.


Thank you!


Dan