The Isle News

[h2]Filipe - Lead Programmer[/h2]
While hordetesting continues and some fixes are still being allocated, work continues as normal on the main branch of game development. This month I have been focused on finishing some work in progress mechanics and cleaning up the codebase, refactoring some code and data to be more organized and allow the creation of new dinosaurs or future abilities to be far easier.

In that regard, Rex’s crush and throw abilities are pretty much done code wise and have been sent off to QA for the first round of bug finding. The same applies to Migration Patrols and Mass Migration before we move that to a future Hordetest.

Lastly, several core mechanics are getting their final touches. Pounce is receiving additional function to make it more interactive when latched onto targets, including the capability to dismount in all directions (no more being forced to jump off a ledge to your death). Bucking will also no longer be a random war of stamina attrition, and some animals will have the capability to retaliate against whatever is latched on to them. Some of you may have seen the screenshots for night vision, but there is also a visual update we are trying for scent to make it less UI based.

There is soon to be more, but that is all for now. See you!


[h2]Ariel - Programmer[/h2]
A large part of the month was spent working on bug fixes and tracking down various crashes. We upgraded to a new version of Unreal Engine and it came with some changes under the hood, but in the end we were able to figure them out without missing out on too much sleep. One of the more annoying bugs I dealt with during the month was just a small jitter that sometimes happened when jumping into water. It doesn’t sound like a big deal, but with this being a multiplayer game there’s an entire system in place to synchronize the player’s location between the server and the client, so that can be tricky to work with, but in the end at least I felt great about working it out.

I made some extensions to our ability system that will be used by some of our upcoming playables. It’s a convenient, reusable way to assign multiple actions on the same key and execute the appropriate one based on whether the key was tapped or held. I also worked on a new tool the team can use to more easily compare dinosaurs at different growths, giving us an overview of all dinosaurs in a conveniently comparable format. This should help a lot with balancing and adding new playables to an existing ecosystem and making sure they’re consistent with what’s already there.

I’m also working on some of the final tweaks for the diabloceratops. It’s not something we want to hold back the update for though, so we’re planning to add the dinosaur to the evrima branch in its relatively current state as it’s in a pretty solid spot right now. After we finalize the other changes we’re planning to add them as a smaller patch to help with some of the disconnect of diabloceratops and its intended gameplay.


[h2]VisualTech48 - Environmental artist[/h2]
We’ve missed a month haven’t we? Well I’m back here to show you what I’ve been doing in that time, starting with the finished enclosures that you’ve seen. This is the next step in large format buildings for human gameplay.

The enclosure kit is complete and semi-modular that can support various standard doorways and unique connections to other structures or interior settings like the GUTS.



Next up is an important gadget of the island's surveillance that’s been behind a few of our videos already: the Trail Camera! I’ve made two versions of this, one fully assembled and the other damaged/destroyed. I believe some of you may have found one that got stepped on by an allosaurus.



I was also tasked with creating our signature Dockyard Harbor Master. It featured some very unique parts of the models, which alongside our kit was really fun to make.

It will be featured in our Dockyard soon enough and is again the next step into our building features we want you to see. I was tasked in making its shell and interior layout of walls.



Next up which took a good chunk of my time is the DTA (Dockyard Transportation Area). This behemoth of a building stands tall at 90m of width and 58m of length, not counting its exterior pillars. It's one of the biggest buildings I’ve made, with partly custom parts for the exterior and the use of our kit for our floorplan.

Such a massive structure was intended to temporarily house various animals that would have been moved to or from an island.



And last and not least I’ve done a lot of minor changes to a whole selection of our modular kit, such as adding trims, new wall types, textures, and much more.

This alongside a great update I’ve made towards our small Dockyard Perimeter fences, which now have broken modular parts that allows anyone to build the fences in a far more organic way with full fence destruction.



Thanks everyone, that is it for these crazy two months. Cheers.


[h2]Wedge - Sound Designer[/h2]
Tyrannosaurus’ audio is starting to come together a bit more this month. I’ve been working on more refinement to its calls, still more adjustments to make to get these really hitting right but they are moving in the right direction.
A lot more work has been done on finishing off sounds for the Tyrannosaurus suite, from its pains and attack cues, a general pass adding filler vocalizations, breaths/foley, and new sounds for its crush/throw abilities and new sounds for its death vocalization. There are also several surprise additions to the Tyrannosaurus vocal suite that you all will hear soon.

I have also had a look at the attenuations used for vocals with a fair few improvements. Call attenuations have been improved – specifically in how vocals sound at distance, increasing the amount of spatial processing that is applied and adjusting the filter curves to get closer to a natural sound which should help judging the distance of the source. I also fixed all vocal sounds having no sub frequencies, even in close proximity, even as the animal producing the vocal sound. Finally lesser vocal sounds such as idles, resting etc. are much tighter now, in addition to breaths and some foley sounds (e.g gore when eating a corpse) this should help with not only staying stealthy while hunting or being hunted but also reduce the immersion broken from the distance they were heard at.

I have designed a new set of sounds for the impact of Herrerasaurus’ pounce attack – an impactful landing to indicate the impact of a collision from height is combined with thick hide tearing and a gory squelch to compliment its claws digging into its prey. The landing animation was previously removed but will be reintroduced – this means in addition to the sound of the attack, the vocal sound as it claims its prey will come back into play. However this will not be making its way into the incoming patch.

Finally a large portion of this month has been focused on a whole heap of bug fixes that came with the engine update, the most notable of which being:

Changes to how sounds that happen very often (i.e footsteps, climbing etc.) are managed in memory.
Alterations to waterfall sounds setup reducing the voice count and how its attenuation behaves – (not on hordetesting)

Added sounds to some animations that had none – Galli nest manage, Troodon flung (knocked from latched pounce), Deino open body and Diablo running flip.

Cheers!


[h2]Bryan - Animator[/h2]
It’s been a good month for locomotion. I've been working at getting a bit more Maiasaura animations done, it can swim and graze now. But the main task at the moment is Triceratops’ sparring. Diabloceratops was just a test run, this is the big boy you just don’t mess with. Triceratops is always a tricky beast to do locomotion for as they have a very unusual gait, something between an Alligator and a Horse.




[h2]KissenKitten - Producer[/h2]
Since I made a pretty hefty post last month this one will be short and sweet. We’ve made improvements across the board in pretty much every department and are working on getting this next update out. In exchange for the brevity here’s some work in progress content. As always and with everything in the game, they are all subject to change.

[h2]Filipe - Lead Programmer[/h2]
This month I focused on finishing the grapple mechanic since it will be used as a basis for other upcoming dinosaurs with their own specific variations. Outside of regular bugs, the Hordetest allowed a more “natural” environment to begin balance testing for grapple. Right now it is getting to a very stable state that we can start expanding upon. The same can be said about Mutations; its main functionalities are in with bug fixes and balance values already tested. The only core mechanics still not available at this time are related to Elders, which is planned to be worked on next.

Spectator mode has received some much needed attention to help administrative users. “Physics Foliage Interaction” is finalized both in core functionality and performance wise. Players can enable the two forms in the in game settings. The system now can be expanded to have more foliage types applied to the system and more should be done in the near future as we investigate foliage destruction.

See you next devblog everyone!


[h2]amarok - Programmer[/h2]
Hey! I’ve been working on a few different things over the last month like bug fixing various issues from Hordetesting and QA reports. I also worked on some server performance issues and setting up some backend tools for our profiling pipeline, which should allow us to keep a closer eye on how things are progressing performance wise.

I finished up the additions to RCON and did some more work on an upcoming engine update. The majority of my month was taken up working on the new AI systems that I briefly went over in the last dev blog, which should make finding AI a lot easier along with some behavior and spawning improvements.


[h2]Ariel - Programmer[/h2]
Many of you have probably already seen most of my work this month on the hordetest branch. I was focusing on improving the diabloceratops's sparring mechanic, particularly the interactions when two players are locked together or pushing each other. It can be tricky to get things like this working in multiplayer, but I feel like I got it working rather well now.

We had some changes to the ceratosaurus's chuffing mechanic on our internal branch, but we decided to bring them to hordetesting. The ceratosaurus will now receive the defensive buff regardless of whether it vocalizes or not, it will also not vocalize automatically at group members or when it's below subadult growth.

Another change I made was enabling certain diabloceratops and tenontosaurus attacks to knock down fruit from trees and also open coconuts on the ground. Other than these I've been focusing on bug fixes, like I usually do during the horde test phase. I hope you have been enjoying the latest addition to the roster. On a personal note, it wasn’t my favorite at first but I’ve grown quite fond of this animal over our time together.


[h2]Wedge - Sound Designer[/h2]
This month my attention has been entirely focused on lots of small incremental changes to push the update to the finish line in terms of audio, with a focus on both Diablo finalization and last additions to Stego’s new power swing. These include but are not limited to:

• Juvenile versions of Stego’s power swing vocals
  
• Added new sounds for Stego preparing its power swing while raising its tail
  
• New horns sound for Diablo when re-engaging into locked stance.
  
• Improvements to arrangement of Diablo sparring vocals when locked
  
• Balance to diablo sparring sounds volume – horns vs vocals
  
• New juvenile Diablo danger call sounds
  
• Improvements to generic Diablo juvenile sounds such as sparring and resting
  
• New adult and juvenile Diablo threaten call sounds
  
• Sounds added to Omni grapple and Diablo Grappled animations
  
• Improved diablo impale sounds – separated pre whoosh and impact sounds to improve timing and play the whoosh sound even if the attack does not hit a target
  
• Minor adjustments to how far horn sounds travel and behavior of sounds at distance
  
• Changed weather sounds to be filtered when indoors instead of silenced
  
• Updated Diablo beg and consume sounds to match new animations
  

With all this out the way I’ve now returned to working on vocal sounds for the Tyrannosaurus, refining its calls, primary and alt attack sounds and working on new sounds for its pain vocalizations. As long as no other necessary changes come up for Diablo then Tyrannosaurus sounds will be my primary focus for the foreseeable future.


[h2]Tapwing - 2D Artist[/h2]
Lately I’ve been working on a mix of things. My more recent task list has been made up of helping bring to life some meta characters and supplementing some surveillance equipment you may have seen alongside some vehicles you most definitely have not. It’s been an interesting project working out what I’ll call ‘vehicular anatomy’ and trying to come up with designs that are familiar enough to look believable while also giving it a unique flare so that it would feel like it came out of the game’s setting. What I like to do is chimera together parts from different vehicles for ideas and play with the basic shapes and then tie all those components together with similar stylings to our architectural designs: such as angular, brutalist, themes and the addition of the bars and rails gave them a nice militant, guarded look for the world they need to function in. You’ll see some of it in Phase Three this week!


[h2]Bryan - Animator[/h2]
It’s been a light month for me as I’ve been out of office, but I’ve been making up for the time working on the Diabloceratops and a bit of Tyrannosaurus so we can get to working on it in-game. Diablo is pretty much done animation-wise, but with how complex it’s sparring mechanic is there is always something to improve on to really sell that bit of gameplay.


Just imagine he’s locked horns with another Diablo.


[h2]KissenKitten - Producer[/h2]
This month like so many others has been a bit of a blur for me since there’s so much going on. There’s more polish done on mutations, grapple, sparring and diabloceratops that should get into your hands soonish. There will still be tweaks and alterations to the mechanics as time goes on as they need to be fairly flexible so other animals can interact with them in meaningful ways. But overall they’ve been satisfactory barring bugs of course.

The animation department has really been cooking this month. We’ve got some QOL animation smoothing tech being worked on in the background that should help remove some of the jank present in some transitions between animations. That process will be ongoing as there will be audits to all of the animations in the game as a whole for each species so we can pull the overall quality of the game up. We’ve been knocking animations out for the tyrannosaurus, triceratops, maiasaura, pteranodon as well as the now revealed allosaurus. They are all coming along nicely, some being animation complete or nearly complete. The tyrannosaurus has been getting some of its sparring related animations at last as well as polish to its special abilities. The triceratops will be following suit once we do some diabloceratops vs tyrannosaurus testing. For technical reasons, the maiasaura is awaiting the release of diabloceratops before its features are implemented but it is pretty much animation complete barring any issue, so the maiasaura should move fairly swiftly.

The pteranodon’s backburner mechanics have been brought back into the light along with some new features that should bring some meaningful changes to it as a playable that we were not able to deliver upon its initial release. The Isle is animation intense due to the amount of life we strive to breathe into the animals. So creatures that occupy multiple habitats (terrestrial, aquatic/amphibious, arboreal, aerial and subterranean) increase animation complexity by a large margin. Which led to creatures like the pteranodon, deinosuchus and dryosaurus releasing without some of the core features we had planned for them. Not lost, not forgotten.

For the creature on everyone's lips, we know the allosaurus was a super popular playable in legacy and we want to make sure its introduction into EVRIMA keeps with that trend. While we’ve only just revealed it publicly, the allosaurus has been worked on in small parts for a long time. Prototyping varying styles of grapples, claw swipes and more. It's important for us to try to incorporate its claws, which are an evolutionary step up, into its playstyle in a way that feels and looks appropriate for the animal as opposed to something too generic. The allosaurus is likely going to maintain its jack of all trades status by being both an ambush predator as well as a large game hunter. Exploding from cover at speed for a short distance to overwhelm smaller prey before being gassed. But foregoing stealth tactics for a more upfront approach when dealing with larger targets. Whittling them down over longer engagements. All of this is subject to change of course since even our best laid plans don’t always work out. More will be revealed as its features start to take shape and solidify. Here are a few of those prototypes.

[h2]Filipe - Lead Programmer[/h2]
This month I focused on refining the Rex’s crush ability and the new throw it has, which is linked to crush but not exclusive to it. The grapple ability is still receiving some updates, which now is mainly for balance as the grapple values need to align with the entire roster but we have massively different animal weights.

We added a new open corpse ability with new animations, included in the current Hordetest. This ability is triggered by tapping “E” three times near a corpse to access the organs, replacing the previously unreliable method of biting a corpse open.

The skin creator has received some visual improvements, including a “Hide UI” button and some resolution fixes. Chat has also received a minor UI update.

Additionally, we finalized the Mass Migration code, updated Mutations and made improvements to vocals. As always, there were the usual bug fixes and small enhancements to server performance.


[h2]Amarok - Programmer[/h2]
Over the last month, I have been focused on enhancing our backend systems for better scaling and testing to improve our workflows. Our official servers are also now more evenly distributed across each region.

Additionally, I have implemented numerous quality of life improvements to the UI, Rcon, and AI systems. Notably, new Rcon commands have been added, which will be added to ReadMe configs coming during HordeTesting. These commands allow for real-time modification of the server configuration and include the following:

• Whitelist enable/disable
  
• Add/Remove whitelist id’s
  
• Toggling AI on/off
  
• Setting Disallowed AI Classes
  
• Setting the AI density
  
• Toggling global chat on/off
  
• Toggling humans on/off
  

We are currently testing Psittacosaurus AI along with a new ability for all carnivores to dig at burrows. Exciting changes are also on the horizon for how players detect animal AI. While I won't reveal too much just yet, it's been noted that AI can be difficult to find even when abundant; they're simply hard to see or notice. The upcoming changes aim to make detecting them much easier, though catching them will still pose a challenge.

I made a small change to the pre-lobby character display in the server browser to reduce confusion. Now, it displays the character status. This indicates the last known state of your playable character, if unknown it may have died while you were logged off. Safe logging will prevent this uncertainty.

I have also been working on the Hordetesting patch, preparing it along with some hotfixes from our last release. I’ll leave it at that for now and hope you enjoy the new updates, especially the Diabloceratops!


[h2]Ariel - Programmer[/h2]
Much of the month was spent preparing for the hordetest, this includes bug fixes, polishing, double checking everything. Unfortunately sparring didn’t make it into the first release, there’s still some adjustments we want to make.

I also ended up having to rework how some of the movement speeds are set up related to fractures. Previously, they consistently related to the standard speeds, but we wanted to give the gallimimus a new, faster trot, while keeping the existing fractured speeds. This required several background changes, but it should now give us more flexibility in the future.

I also worked on some features that will be coming out a bit later such as the carnotaurus updates.



[h2]VisualTech48 - Environmental Artist[/h2]
Things have not been idle at all this month. I’ve finally created some new cool kits, first of which is the scaffolding kit. Featuring a lot of parts and “quick” connections it's quite simple yet can make any part as a construction site for a future building.



Alongside that I’ve simulated the tarps for the kit and textured them semi-modular, meaning we can put various colors and shapes based on desire.

There are new habitation enclosures which will be featured soon in the game that also have part of their kit extended to other areas of the island. They will have several types of entries, including your standard human access points of doors and a large bulkhead that will connect to the GUTS. The shapes and the fence itself has gotten to a steady point and you can already see where some locations will be able to connect into others.




[h2]Wedge - Sound Designer[/h2]
A majority of this month has been focused on our investigation into the audio related Fatal error. I have worked on multiple leads that could have contributed but unfortunately did not result in the fix we were looking for, although this has led to some improvements in memory usage of audio and improvements across some other minor issues. We have two more solutions we will be looking into over the course of the hordetest to narrow down the cause of this crash.

I have also put a lot more time into Tyrannosaurus’ vocal sounds – mostly on its calls and attacks, as well as concepting some classified sounds to establish its vocal palette when not performing the quintessential roars and screams. With the Tyrannosaurus being so iconic as more of its vocal palette is created sounds are likely to be iterated on to make sure its entire set of vocal sounds are cohesive yet diverse and really selling the terrifying characteristic we want it to portray.

I also designed new vocal sounds for Stegosaurus’ power swing mechanic, including a threatening roar display that plays on entering the stance initially, the roar includes slightly higher groans and raspier roars, emphasizing the strain put into vocalizing this threatening sound. This differentiates it from the warning of the threaten call, that this is a promise for its opponent it will not end well for them if they come near.

In addition there are vocal sounds for the stationary swing, moving ‘power’ swing and a short vocal sound that plays on exiting the stance. These cues help not only to give weight and might to the attack but help audibly telegraph this creature’s actions during this mechanic, and display its most aggressive demeanor.

A new sound for the whip of its tail has been added, replacing the half-hearted sound that existed previously. During the moving attack this sound is lower in pitch and has more low frequencies to convey the mass being put into this heavy attack whereas the stationary swing has a snappier whip-like quality to it.

Finally, I also worked on some smaller additions and bug fixes, adding sounds to the new open body animations and tweaking Diablo’s audio and fixing any bugs for the horde test.



[h2]Bryan - Animator[/h2]
Been working on this sparring stuff, a whole lot of new animations to fill in sparring actions and of course revisions to make the existing animations really pop now that we’re able to get in the game and really start knocking heads together. Like, “What if I ran up behind you and shoved you off a cliff?” kind of stuff. We know some of you are going to be doing that stuff, don’t pretend we don’t know. You know who you are.

On top of that, Maia has a new suite of locomotion animations, both for bipedal and quadrupedal movement, I’m sure there’s a few veteran Islanders out there who remember a certain large Hadrosaur who had a similar ability to toggle between locomotion styles.

But with those out of the way, I’ve been working on the Tyrannosaur animations again. I mean, what DOES happen when you bite a Ceratopsian in the face anyway?




[h2]hypno - QA Lead[/h2]
With the first pass of the mutations entering hordetesting, I would like to take this opportunity to encourage you all to leave as much feedback as possible on the system. Which aspects of it do you like and which do you dislike? Now is the best time to get your thoughts down for us, as I’ll be frequenting the feedback channels in Discord throughout the course of this hordetest.

That all being said, we are still far from finished with this system. We have plans to introduce additional mutations, including some that weren’t quite ready for this pass that are almost complete. On top of this, there are plans to introduce species-specific mutations – one of my favorite ideas so far is an enhanced Hypsilophodon spit attack that causes different effects to happen to your target based on the type of food you had eaten recently.

Nesting will also be taking full advantage of the Mutations System - your offspring will take on your mutations in some capacity and there will be selectable mutations that benefit parenting. The finer details of this requires further discussion before I can give any more details on that.

On another note, I hope you guys are enjoying the Diabloceratops as much as I have been! There are some adjustments still yet to be made to get it feeling even better but it sure is good to have another species in your hands. As Ariel stated, sparring still has a bit of work to go as it is a complex system that will also involve other species that can interact with it. Here’s another strange issue that started happening with it in QA testing:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Thankfully, this is fixed already, so we’re yet another step closer to introducing its special ability before releasing the update to the evrima branch.

Finally, I have seen a few people asking where the Psittacosaurus AI is. Unfortunately, this little guy has been causing even further issues for us in QA, resulting in crashes when it is approached. It was decided that it would be taken out for the first release to hordetest but is still very much planned to be in the final release of this update.


[h2]KissenKitten - Producer[/h2]
The rest of the team has primarily covered the broad strokes of what we’ve been up to this month. There’s going to be new stuff showing up seemingly randomly almost everywhere. From new locations to animations, polishing of movements, mechanic adjustments, nightvision changes etc. There are openbody animations in hordetesting that replace the temp bites that were previously used as a bandaid for the feature and the gallimimus and stegosaurus have new content as well as the addition of diabloceratops. Content subject to change as always.

Grapple hasn’t quite made it into the hordetest just yet but I think it will be on its way soon. When it gets into your hands, gather an omniraptor pack and start punching up. The feature aims to ensure size and strength alone do not make an animal impervious to a persistent and coordinated pack effort. Stegosaurus and diabloceratops are formidable opponents but will have reason to fear barks in the distance. Bring it down!

The maiasaura is coming along nicely and is almost animation complete pending some fixes and adjustments. It should enter the roster rather smoothly comparative to others of the past. The entire animation team has gained most of the knowledge they need from myself and Bryan to be able to tackle anything I throw at them which allows us to have a laser focus on specific species. We were juggling about 5 animals at once to make sure everyone could get some hands-on experience with different body types, style of animation, characterization etc and by golly I think they’ve got it! Once we’re done with the tyrannosaurus and triceratops sparring, the animation team will really break into our stride. We’ve already been cooking up some stuff I think you’ll enjoy. Buuuuut I can’t share yet. Typical right?

That’s pretty much it this month. The first iteration of sparring should also be on its way pending some adjustments before and after reaching you but until then, hop onto the hordetest and toss some feedback our way. Be kind even when you’re killing and eating each other.

Hey Islanders,

Thank you to everyone who participated in our recent hordetest, we're now pushing our latest build to the Evrima Public Branch! As mentioned in an earlier Discord announcement, for this patch, we'll be experimenting with a new server variant based on feedback gathered from our recent Hordetest. These servers will support higher playercounts of 150 without AI, and are based in both NA and EU regions. Initially there will only be two servers of this extra type available, but we will spin up additional servers of this variant as necessary and will remain available for as long as player interest dictates.

Please note; Our regular 100 slot AI enabled servers will still be available alongside the experimental ones.


Additionally, here's an example Game.ini for server owners to utilize the latest server functionality.

[/Script/TheIsle.TIGameStateBase]
AdminsSteamIDs="Admin steam ID here"
AdminsSteamIDs="Admin steam ID here"
WhitelistIDs="White list steam ID here" - needs to be enabled in the GameSession below, keep this empty if whitelist is disabled
WhitelistIDs="White list steam ID here"
AllowedClasses=Dryosaurus - List of all enabled classes - can also be managed in Admin Panel in real time
AllowedClasses=Hypsilophodon
AllowedClasses=Pachycephalosaurus
AllowedClasses=Stegosaurus
AllowedClasses=Tenontosaurus
AllowedClasses=Carnotaurus
AllowedClasses=Ceratosaurus
AllowedClasses=Deinosuchus
AllowedClasses=Omniraptor
AllowedClasses=Pteranodon
AllowedClasses=Troodon
AllowedClasses=Beipiaosaurus
AllowedClasses=Gallimimus
AllowedClasses=Dilophosaurus
AllowedClasses=Herrerasaurus

[/Script/TheIsle.TIGameSession]
ServerName="Server name here"
MaxPlayerCount=100
bQueueEnabled=true
bServerPassword=false
ServerPassword="password here"
bRconEnabled=true
RconPassword="password here"
bServerDynamicWeather=true
ServerDayLengthMinutes=45 - Set in minutes
ServerNightLengthMinutes=20 - Set in minutes
bServerWhitelist=false - Add whitelist steam ids in GameStateBase section above
bEnableGlobalChat=false
bSpawnAI=true
AISpawnInterval=40 - Set in seconds (how frequente it checks to Spawn new AIs)
DisallowedAIClasses=Compsognathus - Add the names of each AI class that should be disabled, one line for each
DisallowedAIClasses=Pterodactylus
bEnableMigration=true
MaxMigrationTime=5400 - Set in seconds - how frequent migration zones change
GrowthMultiplier=1 - Universal multiplier for growth, putting this number too high will stop it to work (stay below ~40)


[/Script/Engine.GameSession]
MaxPlayers=100

0.14.28.61

Additions:
- Added DLSS (NVidia) and FSR (AMD)
- Added Skin Creator to the Main Menu
- Added Previous and Next buttons for generated skins
- Re-enabled aerial directional attacks for troodon and omniraptor
- Added Global Chat as a server option (Disabled by default)
- Added Growth Multiplier as a server option
- Added customization for disabling specific AI to server options
- Added AI Density as a server option
- Added new /unstuck chat command (has a 90 minute cooldown, can´t be used near other players)
- Damage now cancels eat/drink
- New breath sounds for small animals
- Setup separate medium and small crouch footstep sounds
- Re-enabled interactive foliage since UE5 update (Enable/Disable available in settings)
- Re-enabled low option for shadows
- Added juvenile AI
- Added new opacity check for smaller animals to see around themselves in grass
- Added Ceratosaurus Manual Vomit
- Added new Dryo primary attack sound
- Added Pattern C to some species (more to come)


Enhancements:
- Updated basic attack cooldowns
- Adjusted some spawn zone sizes and added a couple more zones for Deinosuchus/Beipiaosaurus
- Prevented rain drops from being visible underwater when breaking the surface of watersources
- Updated bucking cost math to take into account juvenile pouncers
- Map updates and fixes
- Improved corpse physics visual and performance
- Improved weather lighting during certain weather conditions
- Reduced chance for certain weather conditions
- Dilophosaurus hallucinations can now be used against AI
- Troodon idle camera has been raised
- Various VFX improvements
- Deinosuchus lunge ability can now drag bigger targets if they are swimming
- AI behavior improvements
- Increased camera lock angle (total 90º) for when eating/drinking
- Moved Deinosuchus spawners to water only
- Scavenger AI no longer appear instantly when a corpse is created
- Updated carnivore diets
- Improvements to spectator mode
- Several sounds/music volume improvements
- Bees now play the pulse audio for large and small targets
- Made schooling fish smaller when caught by beipi
- Herbivores/omnivores can now scent while moving
- Players can now scent when carrying objects
- Adjustments to pounce to avoid various issues with slopes and camera pitch angle
- Allow Pounce to work when attacking back of target
- Adjustments to Fall damage
- Made thrashing a corpse easier to trigger
- Made "Perfect Diet" UI status to only showing up if Tier 6
- Various improvements to when eye shine shows on an animal
- Imported new pachy trot animations
- Increased pachy trot speed
- Increased herrerasaurus drop attack hit size
- Pounce adjustment to avoid latency issues when a nearby target is already hit
- Adjusted mouse sensitivty min/max to better range
- Allow juveniles to also see diets listed for migration zone
- Increased omniraptor and troodon leg health
- Held food will now be dropped during the pachycephalosaurus ram instead of blocking the ability
- Reduced volume of open sound in profile menu
- Underwater NV should now function more consistently
- Adjustments to AI spawn rate
- Disabled Humans
- Adjusted the trot and sprint steps non spatialised radius for small dinosaurs
- Adjusted ceratosaurus manual vomit to deplete only 20% of hunger/thirst and nutrients
- Removed seeing unnecessary hints when underwater
- Gave Herrera underwater Night Vision
- Reduced stormy weather volume
- Rendering updates for performance
- Chat performance improvements
- Grazing hint will now only display when hunger is below 20%


Fixes:
- Organs should now despawn
- Constant fog should no longer exist
- Fixed an issue where issuing a manual ban would kick the last player who joined
- Juvenile deinosuchus can now grab schooling fish
- Fixes to corpse interactions near water
- Fixed nutrient slots not filling for juveniles during certain conditions
- Fixed deinosuchus corpse thrash not working in water
- Fixed issue that caused players to sometimes spawn in a tree or rock
- Fixed AI corpses despawning too soon
- Fixed impact animations sometimes not playing for all clients
- Fixed ceratosaurus threaten call sometimes getting cutoff.
- Fixed walk/crouch footstep audio sometimes playing footstep trot audio
- Fixed charge damage not being reset
- Setting weather with the admin panel will no longer cause undesired abrupt weather changes
- Fixed juvenile dilophosaurus grab montage repeating
- Fixed water splash sometimes not triggering
- Fixed lunge shake slide
- Fixed random footstep in Hypsi slide
- Fixed audio issues with deinosuchus juvenile lunge body impact
- Fix to Physics Door replication when a new player appears
- Fixed effects on rabbit burrows
- Removed holes in the ceiba tree
- Fixed pteranodon snapping towards walls when holding RMB while jumping
- Fixed beipiaosaurus underwater directional attack animation
- Fixed camera rotation with UI open
- Ptera no longer uses stamina when aerial diving
- Fixed stamina consumption at certain water depths
- Fixed pteranodon running takeoff not working
- Fixed courting when flying/falling/jumping
- Fixed boars sometimes ignoring targets they can detect
- Fixed AI sometimes spawning under map
- Fixed pounce recovery causing some animal AI to begin sliding
- Fixes to chicken sound attenuation
- Fixed deinosuchus lunge sound attenuation
- Fixed collision with the watchtower mesh
- Fixed turtle making noise when killed by pounce then dragged
- Fixed recoil animation not playing when lunged if too close
- Fixed herrerasaurus fall damage
- Fixed deinosuchus rotation while thrashing a corpse
- Fixed pteranodon animation going from crash recovery to crash landed
- Fixed effects not requiring a game restart when changed
- Fixed F6 toggling gameplay settings
- Fixed incorrect attentuation for various animal idles
- Fixed scalability settings not properly setting
- Fixed a check with interactable objects so players no longer have move away and reposition to update
- Fix to some audio sounding off centre
- Fixed fish dying due to lack of oxygen
- Fixed bones not giving nutrients to ceratosaurus
- Fixed diet screen UI not showing herrerasaurus and dilophosaurus
- Fixed an issue when dragging organs
- Fixed getting stuck in hatch animation
- Fixed an issue with skeleton physics
- Fix to organs disappearing and appearing again after swallow
- Fixed fast moving clouds
- Fixed AI dying from dehydration or starvation
- Fixed moving scent animations
- Fixed hatchling pachycephalosaurus attract vocal using incorrect sounds
- Fixed being unable to scent while carrying something
- Fixed gore sometimes becoming stuck to the character's face after interaction
- Fixed underwater night vision post process not respecting the river water line
- Fixed Goat AI pinned/swimming/idle animations
- Fixed dilophosaurus crouch animation
- Fixed Tenontosaurus 180 directional attack vocal playing twice
- Fixed deinosuchus underwater vision range not properly scaling with growth
- Fixed lunged players not losing oxygen properly
- Fixed server crash caused by courting
- Fixed an issue causing the Day/Night Cycle to speed up
- Fixed herrerasaurus fall damage scale (reduced)
- Fixed some AI movement issues
- Fixed hypsi blind not cleaning off automatically

[h2]Filipe - Lead Programmer[/h2]
Hello everyone. This month I don't have much to say that you guys don't know already. For the most part, it was a busy Hordetesting month. If you have been following you know we released a lot of bug fixes and quality of life changes. We also managed to stress test the server and noticed some performance caused by the nuances of some AI’s logic and the navmesh. The good news is that when testing only player capabilities, we managed to reach 140/150 slots with a stable server, no hitches and no rubberbanding, which is great even without AI. It means we are doing it right and all the changes and improvements being implemented so far are giving us results and we can continue working more on that front.

Besides all that, work continued as normal with several tests and experimentations on the burrowing side. I know I mentioned this before, but this stage of deciding what to do and how to burrow is important. There are pros and cons in all systems that we tried, but we need to be sure what is going to be done in regards to scalability of the system, how fun it is, replication and of course, performance on both client and server.

There has also been lots of progress on the Tyrannosaurus, especially the crush ability and all the possible situations it can trigger. Hopefully that will be finished soon so I can move to the next mechanics designed for it.

Migrations. The current method known as “Species Migration” calls all players of a species to a specific zone and will be reduced in frequency. There will be a rare “Mass Migration” event which is similar to species migration, but this affects an entire server. There are also individual “Patrols” which more commonly affect individual players and their groups to keep players moving around organically. This should allow for better interactions, more time for exploration, and server configurations. This will have server config tweaking (or you can turn the whole system off).

Work continues as normal. Stay safe!


[h2]Ariel - Programmer[/h2]
This month I kept working on diablo, which mostly involved bug fixes and some background changes to make the sparring interactions more stable across clients. I also added a slightly different version of the primary attack that is triggered when standing in place, looking downwards and pressing LMB.

I also made some progress on the stego’s power swing ability. One of the hurdles I ran into was the tail swing, for example making contact with another dinosaur’s tail before hitting its body. This would result in dealing damage based on only the tail hit, which of course had to be fixed. I looked at a few different approaches, but in the end found one that gives the result you’d expect and can be applied to other attacks as well. The carno’s charge had some similar issues in the past, but now I was able to apply the new system to improve it. Some other abilities might benefit as well, but it’s generally not as noticeable on most of them. All in all the ability is coming along nicely, just needs some finishing touches, testing and balancing and it should be good to go.

I’ve also been hard at work fixing various bugs, both for the upcoming update and smaller ones that will make their way on the live branch later so they have time to be tested to make sure they don’t break something else. One more change I’ve managed is setting up the moving scent for the herbivores. Their animations had to be set up and we took this opportunity to also change the animation system a little to prevent some of the odd head bobbing they were doing. That’s really it for this month, I hope all of you are enjoying the game while we’re wrapping this update up.


[h2]VisualTech48 - Environmental Artist[/h2]
This month was adjusting some performance issues on older props. These are mostly quality of life improvements and carefully curated changes to the props and in a few rare cases, a recreation. There is also the addition of three new pieces to the environment, some of which will begin referencing some of the more obscure props that have been made primarily for lore.

First was the weapons locker built around the weapons you can find on the island. It’s a simple half-modular system that has been a blast to make. Unfortunately, no guns can be found in them yet.



The new buoy will soon be dotting along the bays and other areas of the island, solar powered but most definitely not transmitting anything. In fact, forget they were there at all.



Many of Apollo’s machines run on fuel. These gas pumps can be found in all refueling areas. Make sure that you have your keycard or the system won’t work.



That is it for now, see you next month!


[h2]Frederic - 2D/3D Artist[/h2]
Long time no see. I hope you’ve been enjoying the skin system because we’ve been cooking up some more that you’ll all be able to have fun with soon. We’ve been working for a while now on making tertiary skins to add to our playable roster, trying to make new and exciting patterns for you to bedazzle and show off to your groupmates, enemies, and other island inhabitants. And by we, I mean not just Tapwing and I, but we also recently brought back some previous talent to help with all these skins: The vastly talented artist, Marty.

We hope you enjoy the sneak peek to some of the tertiary patterns below:



Bonus:
“It's great to be back painting new patterns for people to enjoy in game. It was a lot of fun back then and it's just as much fun now to see others put their own spin on them with the color system.” – Marty


[h2]hypno - QA Lead[/h2]
This month QA’s focus has once again been on bug testing the QoL patch, making use of all of the community bug reports that have been sent in so far. Thank you very much to those of you who have been providing those and feedback on our horde testing branch!

That being said, when we have been testing the new content for our upcoming Diabloceratops update, we have been running into some very strange issues. You may have remembered from my last post about the stretching Psittacosaurus - well, please give a warm welcome to the stretching deer!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Seriously though, it seems that AI has moved on from flying and stretching is the new thing… because the boar did it too.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

We found that it’s possible to cling to a rabbit until it enters a burrow. We also found out that it is a mistake:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Beipiaosaurus has developed quite a rash since the last update. Zombie dinosaurs are not a thing.



And Diabloceratops was throwing people around with its mind for a while there:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Thankfully, I can confirm that all of the aforementioned issues were fixed and since then we’ve made some really great progress towards this update. Diabloceratops’ sparring mechanic is still undergoing some fairly large work including animation and stat refinements. Once that is complete then we’ll be able to get it into your hands.

I wanted to take the rest of this blog to cover some of the larger gameplay concerns that haven’t been addressed for a little while and to quickly go over some other information.

• We are aware that a large majority of Gateway is still under-utilized by players and looking at solutions for this. Filipe’s section covers the expansion of the migration system which should help in that regard, but it should also be noted that some of these areas have been internally dedicated as being more human-focused and purposely left untouched for now.
  
• Comparatively, some areas in Gateway still remain to be hotspots (I’m looking at you East Plains) that will have further adjustments made to deal with their issues.
  
• Mutations are mostly done now and their balance has been adjusted. These will need to be tested in a larger scale environment to get a better idea of how they will play out – I expect this to be introduced in the horde test after the upcoming public patch.
  
• Eating has always been finicky in Evrima due to ragdolls not replicating to each client correctly. There have been some internal discussions on how this can be improved. One idea that we’re considering is allowing more leniency on the area a corpse can be interacted with and even making the player’s character automatically walk over to where the server believes the corpse to be, and begin eating it. With something like this, gone are the days of having to wiggle until you find the sweet spot that lets you eat from a corpse.
  
• Much like how we will be introducing the global growth modifier for server owners, we are currently discussing the possibility of adding other modifiers (such as adjusting health/stamina/nutrient etc) regen rates to further customize your experiences.
  
• Mega/mix packing is something that still unfortunately affects most servers that do not impose rules. We have been discussing a solution internally that can’t quite yet be discussed but should be known is being looked into thoroughly.
  
• There are various minor improvements to existing systems in the works. A fair number of players had difficulties thrashing corpses, so tweaks are in the works for things like that. (Tapping E three times to open the corpse, for example.)
  

Lastly, thank you to those who read my post last month and applied for a position on the QA team. Applications have now been read and those that were successful have been reached out to. If you were not successful this time, please do not hesitate to apply again in the future.


[h2]KissenKitten - Producer[/h2]
Gonna be short and sweet. Thank you to everyone that helped us during hordetesting! I think most of the team has covered the bulk of what we’ve been up to. For myself, while hordetesting has been underway, I’ve been bringing in some new talent. The animation team has grown yet again to more than half a dozen strong now. Which is going to assist greatly in pumping out more playables. Since we all know that’s what everyone really wants. Can’t say I blame you at this point. There are also going to be some map additions added in here and there that you should be looking out for. One area in particular is known to be a breeding ground for a select species. Overall this month has just been a lot of bug fixes and testing. Nothing too exciting by our standards. Mutations, migration expansion, tertiary skins, sound traps, expanded AI creatures, diabloceratops, tyrannosaurus, triceratops, maiasaura, pteranodon, gallimimus, stegosaurus, omniraptor, humans and more are in unequal parts being worked on to provide you with an ever richer experience in the game. I’m very curious to see what server owners do with the expanded controls though. Lets see which of you out there can create the best ecosystems. That’s all for now. Hopefully we’ll do a bit of show and tell soon. No promises though. Be good to each other!