Subsistence News

Alpha 50 finally brings seasons to the game. The world will now dynamically transition through all 4 seasons, affecting both the visual aesthetic and many gameplay mechanics.


Almost every type of foliage and tree has been hooked-up to a new system to handle smooth visual transitions through the various seasons.


In early spring, grass will start to grow and sprout an assortment of flowers across the various meadows, woodland and mountain slopes. Trees that have shed their leaves will regrow their canopies. Rivers and lakes will thaw as the daily temperatures rise.


During the summer months, as temperatures rise, the spring foliage recedes and much of the grass will go to seed.


As fall settles in and the heat subsides, the trees and foliage will transition to autumnal shades of reds, oranges and browns. Dead leaves will blow in the wind as the moose enter their rutting season.


Winter brings harsh cold temperatures, snow and blizzards. The rivers and lakes will freeze and many species of trees will become bare of leaves. Much of the grass will die or be buried by snow. The severity of the cold temperatures (and heat during summer) are adjusted for easy/normal/hardcore modes. This short video shows an example of a winter blizzard:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


Ground snow accumulation is based on snowfall, meaning as winter rolls in, it is the weather that will dictate the buildup of snow on the ground and rock formations.

Many of the tree canopies will change throughout the seasons. Below shows an image of the same forest scene across summer/autumn/winter.



Getting too cold will now slowly deplete protein levels, and while too hot will deplete hydration levels faster then usual.

A new “heat-tolerance” meter now shows in the player’s clothing profile. Different clothing items will affect this level. If the temperature rises above this level, the player will start losing hydration at a faster rate (and this will be indicated by a “HOT” status icon).

So carry extra fluids on hot summer days, or take a swim to cool-off.


Players can now craft radiators from the BCU craft menu.

Radiators kick-out more heat than campfires/woodburners (allowing for higher altitude base-building). They also have a much greater range, so can get better coverage through the base. Being within range of Radiator heat, gives a slight increase to health regeneration speed.

Radiators draw power from the base when active. While active, the heat elements will light up and emanate heat waves. Heat generated by radiators is affected by interior insulation properties (see below).


During the heat of the summer, bases can get very hot indoors. Air Conditioners (found in the BCU craft menu) can drop internal base temperatures by as much as -20°.

The fan blades animate and the cooling element will light up while the AC is running.



Up until now, heat from a fire was either on or off, regardless of proximity to the source. Now the influence of fires (also radiators and AC units) falls-off as players move further away. It’s percentage of influence is now displayed over the status icon.

In addition to this, both the radiator and AC unit are influenced by insulation in the base. If you have an open-air base, heat from the radiator will be diminished greatly over distance. However an enclosed base will make much better use of radiator heat and AC cooling. I’m not using true volumetrics for this calculation, so leaving a door open won’t deplete the base of heat, however standing by an open doorway will be cooler.


During the winter months, while the rivers and lakes are frozen, players will need to melt snow in their canteens to acquire water.

Simply stand on snow and the “fill with snow” action will show under the right-click menu. You can also use shift-click.


During mid-September through mid-October, moose will enter their rutting season. During this period they will become highly aggressive and instead of fleeing from players, will stand their ground and attack/chase.

When entering this period, all players will be notified. Also an additional icon will show next to the month reading in the top left for the duration. Players should be cautious of moose encounters during this time.

Through the depth of the winter, the rivers and lakes will freeze over. This means certain resources such as kelp, clams, sandstone, fish will be unavailable. Also crystal, as cave access will be restricted. However traversal across lakes will be easier, as you can simply run across the ice.

I’ve seen many players comment on ice-fishing, so this is something I’m considering adding.


During the winter months bears will go into hibernation and white wolves will emerge onto the landscape.

White wolves are more camouflaged to their environment, have higher hitpoints and yield more loot than standard wolves.


During fall months, cotton can be found and picked around the world. These plants will either give you one piece of cotton or a seed.



Previously water temperatures were the same as world temperatures (apart from the -4°C wetness penalty). Water temperature is now treated separately.

The winter jacket offers decent warmth during cold months. However, it offers little protection from physical damage. It also uses the chest armor clothing slot, so cannot be worn with combat vest or diving gear.

Sweaters provide better warmth than any of the existing shirts or hunter jacket, but offer less hit damage protection.



Firearms and bows now take usage damage. Once depleted of health, they will become unusable and require maintenance.

Broken weapons will show a red X over the item. Right-clicking will show a repair button, which shows the repair recipe as you hover over it. The recipe changes based on how damaged the weapon is.



Weapons with upgrades are more expensive to maintain. This increased cost is only applied for “increased damage” upgrades.


Clothing now also take damage and will need to be repaired.

Damage is caused to items depending on where the damage was inflicted. Once worn clothing is reduced to zero health, it will be moved into the main inventory. So if your inventory is full, be aware the clothing item will be dropped. There will be an audible “ripping” sound when a clothing item’s health reaches zero.


The individual stats (damage and warmth) for clothing items can now be viewed in the craft menu, and in the hover-tip for the item.


Hunters (including rogues) will now dress accordingly for the time of year.

During the winter months they will wear camoed variants of the winter jacket. This will substitute any combat armor, so generally they will be less protected from gunfire.

During fall and spring you will see them wearing sweaters and t-shirts.



I’ve updated the status icons to also now display text. Also have a back shadow, so easier to see over the background.

Heat packs provide a short period of warmth (regardless of world temperature). Currently set for 2 minutes. While active a heat icon will show.

In normal and hardcore modes, players spawned in the wilderness during winter will be issued a free heat pack as part of their starting loadout (to help with their journey back to base).


Difficult to display in the image below, but bears and wolves now have much denser hairs on their bodies.



I’ve finally added a simulation for the fishing line, connecting the rod to the float.

This feature actually rolled out (unmentioned) with the previous performance hotfix, but it deserves a mention as I feel it makes fishing way more immersive, seeing the line tighten and jerk around as fish fight as you reel them in (also was a lot of work :) ).


I’ve fixed the annoying alignment issue on item dropdown menus. Often then would render offscreen, requiring players to move the item to select actions (especially for toolbelt and clothing items).



Crates and dropped hunter kits have slightly less loot during the winter months.



Previously if a player exited the game while their dropped kit was yet to be collected, it would not save and be lost. This is now corrected and will still be there after reloading the profile.



Selecting a public server in the server browser will now display the current time of year that server is in, and also the current version of the game.

When attempting to join a server that is currently in winter, the player will be prompted by a warning advising so.


Currently each season lasts 6 in-game days, so around 14 hours of gameplayer per year. In the future I plan to allow players to configure this themselves.


It is possible to override the current month when launching a profile. Simply click the ‘Edit month’ next to the current month on the profile.

This should give players some freedom to exit from winter, or play any season of their choice without disrupting their progress.


Several players reported discomfort with the bright lightning flashes during storms, so I’ve added a toggle for these flashes in the in-game settings.


Previously there was a jarring visual cutoff where river water would transition into lakes. I’ve now fixed this so the transition is blended smoothly.



Huge thanks to Streamerize for localizing this version!

• Prevented infection from animal attacks during the first day on easy and normal modes (full day for easy and 0.6 of a day for normal).
  
• Increased speed at which fish are reeled in when fishing.
  
• Increased distance at which loot will not despawn near players.
  
• Added subtle metallic reflections to base armor-plating.
  
• Updated almost all foliage (grass, flowers, bushes) such that wind will only affect the upper part of the plants. Previously roots of grass would move in unison with the upper part.
  
• The menu map will now display in the same season as the most recently saved SP profile save.
  
• Fixed rare bug where wind turbines would not turn and generate power.
  
• New sound for picking up plants.
  
• Added one second delay preventing players from drinking from a canteen after filling with dirty water (to prevent accidental infection).
  
• Reduced volume of the double barrel shotgun fire sound.
  
• Slightly reduced the number of ore nodes in the world (and decreased their size).
  
• Prevented edge-case where fishing tackle would fall through the ground if cast on to the ground or river.
  
• Higher tier shirts and pants now require the lower tier as part of their crafting recipe.
  
• A random clothing item is no longer deleted on death (in normal mode).
  
• Starting M9 and low tier pants now start on low health.
  
• Added lower poly LOD’s for all clothing and human meshes.
  
• Fixed sudden lighting changes while transitioning into evening/morning during cloudy/rainy days.
  
• Fixed bug where the light from a fire wouldn’t move for clients of co-op games if the fire was moved.
  
• Alpha version number now displays at the top right of the hud.
  
• Prevented edge-case in hardcore mode where premium weapons parts could be excluded from hunter base destruction crates.
  

Please note that this is the first step in truly bringing seasons to life in the game, and lays a foundation for seasonal specific elements for future and existing features.

This one has been tricky to balance. In particular the temperatures, being influenced by time-of-day, time-of-year, weather, wetness, altitude, clothing, sheltered-amount, artificial heating/cooling. I imagine I will follow this release with some balancing hotfixes once players have given me feedback.

Thanks for everyone’s patience while I worked on this one. Please share your thoughts on the new changes and what you’d like to see in the game moving forward.

Cheers,
ColdGames

Discord invite: https://discord.gg/zyy4jQs
Twitter: @playSubsistence
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/playsubsistence/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkQZ7vkTiqetTC0_8umY2Pg

Continued Translation Support Credits (in no particular order): Thank you so much for the support.
Spanish (David Lascasas)
Hungarian (Erb Ármin)
Portuguese BR (Thiago Schumacke)
German (LPCaiser)
Italian (Marcello Brancaccio, Federico D. Ravagli)
French (Anthony Charrault)
Czech (Dílna U mnicha)
Dutch (Damster_NL)
Russian (FRAME)
Turkish (Çagla Gurbet)
Swedish (Mattias Gustavsson)
Norwegian (Christer Djuvik, Svein Tore Stegemoen)
Romanian (VaeVictis)
Estonian (Streamerize)

Since Microsoft has been rolling out the new Windows 1903 update, many players have reported significant drops in game performance while playing Subsistence (even on high-end hardware).

This patch should fix the performance issues for those affected (not all hardware configurations have experienced the issue). Microsoft may patch the issue, but I didn't want to wait.

This is essentially a patched version of Alpha 49. It does include a few small tweaks of the upcoming Alpha 50 release, but the main features of A50 are still a work-in-progress (and thus are disabled in this build).

I'm working hard on the new update, so please stay tuned for the release.

Cheers,
CG

* Thanks to modder PredatH0r for help with this fix.

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Alpha 49 is primarily focused on introducing a new underground cave system, currently accessible only via deep-water scuba diving. Expanding on the later-game resource trees and adding further world exploration to the later-game progression. Along with many other new items, gameplay and graphical improvements, fixes and tweaks.

Players can now craft scuba diving gear to explore the deep waters in the world. The equipment is crafted at the new “Diving Station”, a powered crafting station that can be crafted in the BCU.

Must be placed within the radius of a BCU and is used to craft both the Diving Gear and the required O2 tanks.

The diving gear uses the chest armor slot on player’s clothing profile (however provides zero damage or warmth protection).

The O2 tanks are single-use items and will consume their O2 contents while the player is wearing diving gear and submerged in water.

While in use, the standard O2 meter will update to show the tank-count and current tank O2 amount. As one tank depletes, the next one will take over and start being used.

There is a new explorable cave system deep underground. Currently this area is only accessed via a dormant lava tube deep underwater in the largest lake. If you venture down there, be sure to pack extra O2, or risk stranding yourself with no means of escaping alive.

Building is not restricted in caves, although in the future I may need to put some restrictions on blocking entrances (on open public co-op servers). Resources are limited however, so players would have to transport resources if they wanted to start construction projects.

Throughout the caves, deposits of Crystal Ore and Coal can be found and mined. Mining crystal nodes causes more wear on tools than other ore types.

Crystal can be processed down in the refinery to produce raw crystal, which is used in later-game crafting recipes and item upgrades.

Coal can be used as an alternative fuel source for campfires/woodburners, lessening the demand to chop wood for fuel. It’s usages may be expanded in future updates.

Note: Cave ore nodes have a much longer respawn cool-down. So if you clear a cave area, it will take quite some time to repopulate.


Groups of mining hunters patrol the caves. Unlike other hunters, these guys pack double barrels, .44’s and recurve bows, so can be dangerous.

I have plans to expand on their behavior and roles in future updates.


Clam shells now spawn in the lakes in the world. Bash them open using an axe or pickaxe and harvest the pearl inside.

While these shells spawn at all depths, they are more common in deeper waters.



Circuit boards are a new item, crafted at the workbench. They have been woven into the later-game crafting and upgrade recipes.

I’ve increased the size of the ore nodes in the world (also corrected their placement alignment). I added a more realistic destruction physics simulation to when they break apart. I think this makes harvesting nodes more satisfying, but let me know what you think.



There is now a larger 42 slot storage unit, which can be crafted in the BCU. This unit is intended as more of a lavish, later-game convenience item and should be a nice QOL improvement for established players maintaining large bases.



Taking damage, bleeding, harvesting animals, etc will now cause blood splatters in the surrounding environment.

This means that violent battles can result in quite a mess. Some players may not like this, so I may make a toggle for this in a future update.


Currently only used for 4th-tier weapon upgrades. These parts are currently only acquired from specialty crates spawned from detonating BCU crackers on established hunter bases.

The larger (more established) bases yield greater number of these parts. Destroying an underdeveloped base will yield none.


Sorry for the delay on this fix (I know this was frustrating). Plants and ore nodes in the world will no longer despawn while the player is nearby.



Previously the daytime color-grading had a heavy yellow tint. I've dialed it back to a more natural pallet, where the blues and greens can pop more.

I’ve also been experimenting with denser ground foliage detail (see image above), so you’ll notice certain areas look a bit different.


Previously, as these areas were inaccessible, they had almost no detail. I’ve now added lots of new rock formations and detail.



Since the last couple of map expansions, I hadn’t updated the settings for visual culling on distant objects, meaning certain areas were making needless draw calls on very distant objects (especially on the west side of the lake). I’ve updated it to be far more aggressive. It’s unlikely you’ll notice distant objects popping out from view, but the stress on performance is now reduced in these areas.


A couple of tweaks to the fishing system: If a player is too close to the bait, the less likely fish will bite. Fishing in very shallow water will reduce the chances of hooking large fish.

I’ve been working on some other cool improvements to the fishing system, but couldn’t get it wrapped-up for this update, but it will follow soon.


Tools now take usage damage when mining nodes (not currently for chopping wood).



Accidental usage of bandages, health kits and antidotes will now not consume if the player is not in need of that particular med type.



Previously when stepping over geometry, the camera would instantly snap to the new Z axis. I’ve added smoothing to make this feel more natural. This is a subtle change, but I think makes a marked improvement to the feeling of play.


Huge thanks to VaeVictis for localizing this version!

• Slugs cost 1 less iron.
  
• Fixed bug that allowed items to be shift-clicked into the bed.
  
• New water splash particles in rivers.
  
• Fixed bug where HC profiles weren’t being successfully wiped in a fail-state.
  
• Reduced storm sounds while underwater.
  
• Fixed bug that could cause rain particles to play while underwater.
  
• Added new underwater caustic lighting fx (moving light ripples).
  
• New axe/pickaxe underwater swinging sound.
  
• Extended reach of axe and pickaxe.
  
• Increased size of kelp.
  
• Moose have had a slight stats boost.
  
• PvP kills now get logged in the launch log file (allowing server admins to identify them if they wish to ban).
  
• New console command “coord” will display the local players map coordinates (type “help” to see a list of available commands). This is primarily to help with trouble-shooting bugs with the community.
  
• Deer and moose will less frequently choose to swim in lakes when fleeing from danger.
  
• Fixed bug where you couldn’t switch ammo types when clicking the ammo-type icon while weapon was in slot 1.
  
• Fixed bug where hunters would fire random shot at the ground when fleeing to cover.
  
• Fixed co-op client audio bug where sleeping players would make reloading sounds.
  
• You now get slightly more gunpowder and casings when crafting at the workbench.
  
• Fixed glitched floating ore nodes and kelp at the foot of he western river.
  
• Fixed edge-case bug where moose would choose to stay in a particular area and stop roaming the world.
  
• Fixed hammer impact/repair sounds not playing for clients of co-op games.
  

Thanks for everyone's support and patience while I worked on this one. If you haven't already, please join the community on the Steam forums and the official Discord server (invite below). I welcome your thoughts and suggestions for the game moving forwad. Please stay tuned for more updates as the project continues to evolve!

All the best,
CG

Discord invite: https://discord.gg/zyy4jQs

Twitter: @playSubsistence
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/playsubsistence/

Continued Translation Support Credits (in no particular order): I hugely appreciate the support.
Spanish (David Lascasas)
Hungarian (Erb Ármin)
Portuguese BR (Thiago Schumacke)
German (LPCaiser)
Italian (Marcello Brancaccio, Federico D. Ravagli)
French (Anthony Charrault)
Czech (Dílna U mnicha)
Danish (Morten Sørensen, Jesper Christensen, Bartholomeo Alexander)
Dutch (Damster_NL)
Russian (FRAME)
Turkish (Çagla Gurbet)
Swedish (Mattias Gustavsson)
Norwegian (Christer Djuvik, Svein Tore Stegemoen)
Romanian (VaeVictis)

A new shotgun can now be crafted at the workbench. The Double Barrel is a powerful weapon and has a much tighter spread than the pump-action, making it suitable for mid-range combat as well as close.

It’s dual barrel allows for two shells to be fired in quick succession, however then requires a fairly lengthy reload, so be tactical with your timing on shots/reloads.

I know it seems strange that other weapons are still crafted in the player crafting menu. As new weapons are introduced, the higher power firearms will slowly move over to the workbench.

The flashlight can be attached as with the other firearms.


Players can now craft a Distiller (located in the BCU). This item must be placed within range of your base and allows you to distill your own Alcohol (“moonshine”) overtime.

Alcohol requires potatoes and sterilized water to be crafted in the Distiller. It takes time to craft, so be sure to queue it up and plan ahead.

The motivation behind this is to add greater purpose and benefit to potato farming, and to open up craftable flammable items for players to play with.

Alcohol can be used to craft Molotov’s in the workbench. Molotovs are effective at damaging bases, and dealing with mobs during attacks.

When a molotov explodes near a player/animal/hunter the initial blast will catch them on fire. They will remain on fire for up to 10 seconds. Jumping into water will put the fire out. Hitting multiple targets with the initial blast is an effective way of dealing a lot of damage.

Molotov fires will burn for up to 20 seconds, dealing damage to all buildables/players/hunters/animals that touch their flames. The player who throws the molotov will get a distinctive sound and hitmarker display as the molotov fire inflicts damage.

Base items (such as storage chests, generators, etc) protected by a wall will not take fire damage if the flames originate from the opposing side of the wall (even if flames may sometimes appear to clip through).


During attacks, hunters will now sometimes use molotovs instead of grenades. I think it adds to immersion to fire-fights to have flames illuminating the battle (and creating no-go zones in the flames).


I’ve added a subtle tree-shake animation and falling leaves while players chop trees. It’s a small tweak, but I feel this makes the process feel less static and more satisfying.

A large part of this update was focused on continuing to improve network play. I was discovering that some long-term co-op profiles would suddenly start lagging and becoming unresponsive for clients. This would occur when extremely large bases were built on the map.

This was caused by having too many dynamic items in the world and exhausting the available network channels on each client connection (not bandwidth related). The main culprit was physical loot in the world (1000’s of items), with each item using its own network channel.

I’ve added a new system (which uses only a single channel) which reports to the client on harvestable items in their proximity.

This has big benefits for clients, servers and solo games:

• Both client and server now only spawn dynamic items for loot in their immediate view (less rendering and tick cost).
  
• Far greater stability and scaling for servers with huge bases.
  
• Less demand on the server to determine if items are relevant to clients (much less stress on CPU).
  

Other than performance gain, players should notice no difference in gameplay. I’ve also set a building cap for co-op games (to ensure stability) which will display in the hud for all players if it gets near. The cap is high, but I’ll be working to increase this as I continue work.


With the recent improvements to server performance, I’ve increased the max count from 8 to 10. Please let me know if your experience problems.


This was being caused by the server deeming nodes “not relevant” to clients, so as a side-effect of the new system detailed above, this problem has finally been eliminated.


Previously clients of co-op games had a noticeable lag on hits registering while harvesting trees and ores, and when picking plants in the world. I’m now using client-side predictive logic to eliminate this lag entirely, so clients will have a much more responsive experience while harvesting!

Players can now craft high-powered, single-projectile slugs (currently only used with the double barrel):

Slugs do extreme damage but are expensive to craft. Press Left-Alt (rebindable) to switch ammo types while the weapon is equipped, or click on the ammo-type icon above the weapon on your toolbelt.

The male character model will now grow a beard if alive for a long time. Dying will reset this. It’s a simple feature without any transition states through growth, I just thought it added a bit of variance to character aesthetic.



I’ve reduced the slots in the animal housing. The previous 8 slots was too much and encouraged early-game players to keep far more animals than they could afford. It now starts with a single slot and additional slots can be added via the upgrade menu.

Hitmarkers (that show when you hit an enemy) have been increased in size. They will also now flash red when the shot was a headshot, giving the player better feedback during combat.



Suggested many times by players; an oxygen meter will now show at top-center while diving.



If standing near an explosion, the camera will now shake based on the power of the blast. This should increase immersion during attacks. I may add a toggle for this in a future update.



I’ve pulled in the first person weapon holding position for all firearms in attempt to give better body presence (also while aiming down sights). I think it feels better, but let me know your thoughts.


Co-op hardcore games end if one of the team dies (and there are no bed spawns). Previously other players would wonder why the server exited. Now all players will see a message indicating the name of the player who died.


Credits for the translation (thank you for the support):

• Morten sørensen
  
• Jesper Christensen
  
• Bartholomeo Rudolph
  

• New sound for tools breaking.
  
• Current ammo types now show above all toolbelt weapons while the inventory is open.
  
• Chicken stew now gives +hydration.
  
• Fixed bug that allowed items to be lost via shift-clicking into the fabricator.
  
• Slightly increased speed at which loot will repopulate after harvesting a zone.
  
• Fixed newly-posted co-op chat messages fading out while the player has the chat open.
  
• Fixed glitch where animal house water meter would briefly fill to max when adding cooked foods.
  
• Fixed bug where queued crafting meters would visually continue while game was paused.
  
• New first person sprinting animation for the M9.
  
• Selected ammo type for a weapon (such as premium/grenade arrows) now persist through a save/load.
  
• Prevented hitmarker showing when player takes environmental damage.
  
• Condition icons are now cleared when player dies.
  
• Fixed oven not showing pans cooking when loading a save.
  

Thanks you so much to all the players who have been posting thoughts and discussions on the Steam forums/Discord server/FB page/etc. I try to read it all and see lots of great ideas and insight posted regularly. This all helps immensely while I continue moving forward with development. Hope everyone’s having a great week, please stay tuned for more updates!

Cheers,
ColdGames

Discord invite: https://discord.gg/zyy4jQs

Twitter: @playSubsistence
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/playsubsistence/

Continued Translation Support Credits (in no particular order):
Spanish (David Lascasas)
Hungarian (Erb Ármin)
Portuguese BR (Thiago Schumacke)
German (LPCaiser)
Italian (Federico D. Ravagli)
French (Anthony Charrault)
Czech (Dílna U mnicha)
Danish (Morten Sørensen, Jesper Christensen, Bartholomeo Alexander)
Dutch (Damster_NL)
Russian (FRAME)
Turkish (Çağla Gurbet)
Polish (Daniel Łokietek)