Update 41 for cyubeVR is live! Crystal Assisted Block Placement, and more!

Hey everyone, Update 41 for cyubeVR is live!

This update adds a new "Crystal Assisted Block Placement" feature, significant performance optimizations, visual improvements, bugfixes, and more!

Let's take a look at the list of changes first, and after that, let's get into more detail for some of the changes!

• Added Crystal Assisted Block Placement (allowing you to place multiple blocks at once)
  
• Added new shadow feature, "Small Scale Shadows", enabled by default
  
• Added "Blocks Mined in Last 10 Minutes" stat, with score submission and world record counter
  
• Improved look of torches when bloom is off
  
• Significantly optimized chunk update speed
  
• Changed default bloom setting to "Low"
  
• Made snow and rain weather less often occurring
  
• Increased time until first weather change when creating a new world
  
• Optimized memory usage of some textures (the game has become ~1.7 GB smaller on disk)
  
• Fixed "turn on teleport arrow" not being modifiable on left controller
  
• Fixed sky sphere not following player when you've walked veeeeery faaaar
  
• GPU performance optimizations
  
• Improved design of initial greetings text you see when launching the game for the first time
  
• Fixed a possible issue with too big .important files
  
• Added check to prevent worlds with newer world format from being loaded (and potentially corrupted) by older game versions
  
• Fixed a stack of 100 scaffolding blocks not being reduced in inventory when a block is placed
  
• Fixed outdated information in smooth locomotion tutorial page
  
• Made stat/score submission more reliable and more in-line with the rate limits from Steam
  
• Added local storage for the scores/stats
  
• Made world loading code better detect potentially corrupted chunk and still allow successful loading of world
  
• Fixed not being able to grab flowers/grass with right hand after bucket was used
  
• Fixed leaves incorrectly disappearing and reappearing when falling a tree
  
• Improved performance in main menu
  

The block placement tool now has a new design. Without a crystal attached, the functionality is exactly same as before. But you now have the option to attach a crystal to the block placement tool. If you do that, then the maximum possible length is extended further, and it uses up crystal charge to allow you to place multiple blocks at once, and only half the blocks you place are taken from the inventory! The other half of the blocks you get for "free"!

Crystal assisted block placement allows you to place up to 9 blocks at once, in any direction you want. So it could be 1x1x9, or 3x3, or 1x2x4, or anything else, as long as the maximum amount of blocks is less than 9. If you place 8 blocks using this mode, only 4 blocks are taken from your inventory! If you place 9 blocks, the game is generous and rounds down, so that also takes 4 blocks from the inventory.

The game remembers which blocks were placed using this mode, and if you break one of those blocks, there is only a 50% chance that it spawns any items. So this can not be used to get "infinite" blocks, if you destroy all the blocks again, you'll end up with the same amount of blocks in your inventory as before.

The GIF shown above is from ChibiArcher on Youtube. He's doing both a German and an English cyubeVR Let's Play series currently, so if you're interested in that, definitely subscribe to him on YouTube!



The new "Small Scale Shadows" add small-scale shadows to objects that would normally not cast shadows to save performance, like grass or block items. They also greatly improve the look of trees in the distance if the quite expensive "Distance Shadows" setting is not used. These "Small Scale Shadows" are basically free regarding performance, so they offer a great subtle improvement in visuals without any real disadvantages.



There's a new, small, fun feature! In the "Stats" tab of the settings, you now see 3 new stats:

Total Mined Blocks Last 10 Minutes:
Total Mined Blocks In 10 Minutes (Your Record):
Total Mined Blocks In 10 Minutes (World Record):

So, the game now automatically counts how many blocks you have mined (destroyed) in the last 10 minutes, and keeps record of what the highest value was that you ever achieved there. Your best value is automatically uploaded to Steam, and the game will show you the highest value achieved there by anyone on Steam.

This could probably be called "Competitive Mining" :) After this was added to the beta build of the game, the beta testers had a lot of fun with this already, and kept beating each others world records. The current world record as the time of writing this announcement was achieved by Kroy, who also streamed his attempt live on his Twitch channel! He is streaming cyubeVR every wednesday on his Twitch channel, so if you're interesting in watching him build impressive things, definitely give him a follow there! You can see the recording of his world record attempt here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/787572690 He achieved a record of 29655 blocks mined in 10 minutes. That's for you to beat now :)



So get out your dual wielding iron sledgehammers, and try to beat the world record!



Recently, more awesome new custom mod blocks were added to the workshop! Let's mention some of them here:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2240900359&searchtext=
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2240900805&searchtext=
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2245866516&searchtext=
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2266308593&searchtext=

Make sure to regularly browse through the Steam Workshop and subscribe to anything you find useful for building in cyubeVR!

If you're also interested now in creating custom mod blocks for cyubeVR, here you can find a tutorial about how to create custom mod blocks for cyubeVR - as long as you are familiar with using any image editing software, it's a really easy process! https://steamcommunity.com/app/619500/discussions/3/1640917625019543783/





In case you have not seen it yet, you can now support development of the game through Patreon! Patreon rewards are being mentioned in the credits of the game, getting a special colored name in the official cyubeVR Discord, and physical items like a sticker, mug, or t-shirt with cyubeVR designs.

https://www.patreon.com/stonebrickstudios

For more info, see this announcement post:

https://steamcommunity.com/games/619500/announcements/detail/5382318210056194671



As usual, thanks very much to our great beta testers in the official cyubeVR discord who tested this update as part of 20 separate beta builds! If you want to test new features earlier when they come out in the beta branch, make sure to join the discord and take a look at the #beta-build-patch-notes and #beta-build-discussion channel!

That's all for today! If you like the game, don't forget to tell other people about it and write a review on Steam if you haven't done that already, even if its just a few words. Writing a positive review and spreading the word is the easiest way you can support the game!
Thanks for caring about the game and as usual, make sure to report all issues you see and give me as much feedback as possible in the official forums or the official discord server, join it before its full ;) We're over 1300 people there already, come and join us! If you don't like something about the game, tell me there and I'll try to improve it! I'm available to chat with anyone in discord :)

There's also a cyubeVR subreddit available on Reddit, if you're active on Reddit, make sure to subscribe to it and maybe post some great screenshots there!

Also, don't forget there's an official roadmap with voting features.

Looking forward to hearing what you think about the new update :)

Cheers!