Prehistoric Kingdom News

[p][/p][p]https://www.patreon.com/c/BlueMeridian[/p][p][/p][p]Welcome to the June Development Update! [/p][p]Surprise! This month we have a very special blog post with information on a highly awaited feature - breeding! That’s right, animals will finally be able to create their next generation come Update 15.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Before we get into how it works, we wanted to mention that the game is currently 30% off on Steam until July 11! It’s a very exciting year for Prehistoric Kingdom, so it’s a great time to jump in and prepare for Update 15. Now, let’s talk about how breeding came to be![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Though originally slated for the end of Early Access, the team have been secretly working on breeding since Update 14 launched back in April. Thanks to its very warm reception, we re-evaluated our plans and came to a few conclusions:[/p]

• [p]Players LOVED baby animals![/p]
• [p]We really wanted to work on breeding![/p]
• [p]Breeding would add even more gameplay to the vets and diseases coming in Update 16![/p]

[p]As you might imagine, it was a pretty quick decision for us. It also made a lot of sense since our initial vision for Update 15 was an animal behavioral update.[/p][p]With breeding on top, this is the first time that the animals are actually trying to accomplish a long term goal. They’ve only ever had to solve immediate needs like hunger or thirst, but now they have an impulse to mate, look for a mate, successfully court each other, find a nest, build it - there’s A LOT going on in their little brains! And it’s a true evolution of the partner state and family dynamics we first introduced in Update 14. [/p][p]So, with all the said, we do need another month on this thing. This means we’re aiming to get a PTB out in late July to test various features with the full Update 15 coming in late August. It is a really big update with a lot of moving parts so we can only ask for your patience.

[/p][p][/p][p]The following discussion has been written from the perspective of Challenge Mode. Some details and imagery may be altered by the time Update 15 releases.[/p][p][/p][h2]Update 15[/h2][h2]Breeding[/h2][p]In Prehistoric Kingdom, breeding becomes viable once the player has unlocked male animals through research. In order to have your animals successfully breed, there are a number of factors that must be considered.[/p][p][/p][h3]Fertility[/h3][p]Fertility is a new value that determines the maximum amount of offspring an animal can have. This means that animals with a high fertility have the potential to yield many babies, while a lower fertility can only produce few or none.[/p][p][/p][p]UI Concept Art[/p][p]In order to get animals with high fertility, players will need to adjust the growth speed and maturity of their creatures in the Animal Nursery. The slower an animal grows and the younger it is, the higher its fertility will be upon reaching adulthood.[/p][p]This means that players who take the time to raise their animals from baby to adult will be properly rewarded when it’s time to breed them! This is especially important as any offspring will inherit the fertility of their parents, averaging the two together.[/p][p][/p][h3]Breeding Season & Courtship[/h3][p]Throughout the year, each species has their own breeding season. This can be seen through the Paleopedia or by looking at an animal’s biology panel. An indicator displays how long the season lasts and where you currently are in the year.[/p][p][/p][p]UI Concept Art[/p][p][/p][p]During their breeding season, adult animals have a chance to partake in courtship. While this process can be simple for many species, others such as Leaellynasaura have a unique dance move performed by males. Courtship attempts can be accepted or rejected by females, leading to either a positive or negative encounter.[/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][h3]Nesting and Bedding[/h3][p]A successful courtship means that a female has been bred and has the potential to carry offspring for the remainder of the breeding season.[/p][p]In order to actually receive babies, however, the player must add specific modules to their habitat. Dinosaurs will require a Nest, while mammals require a Birthing Bed. If the player does not include these modules in the habitat, animals will never carry offspring, allowing players to selectively choose when they want naturally born babies.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Different species require different nest sizes![/p][p]After a successful courtship, the female will seek out a nesting module to claim as her own. Once claimed, she will physically dig up the nest or birthing bed, changing its features in real time. Nests in particular can be built up into craters or mounds, while birthing beds have dried grass and leaf litter.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]Keeper’s Note: Tyrannosaurus will build a mound styled nest in the final update![/p][p]Players can also select what species are allowed to use a nest or birthing bed before they’re claimed. This makes it easy to have separate nesting areas for animals that share the same habitat, for example, this Coelodonta and Elasmotherium.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]The Next Generation[/h3][p]Once a nest has been fully built up, eggs will appear! Each egg now has a health bar and must be tended to by parents or in the future, vets. If the parents spend too much time away finding food or water, the egg health will drop, gradually killing the eggs one at a time. After the incubation period has ended, baby dinosaurs will finally hatch at the nesting site.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Birthing beds work similarly, though unlike dinosaurs, mammals are more resilient and less at-risk of losing offspring. At the end of their incubation period, the mother will rest and deliver her babies on the birthing bed.[/p][p]Nests and birthing beds will return to their original dirt-like state a short time after all the babies have been born, allowing new parents to claim the module.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]So, why go through all this? To put it simply, animals that are born in the park have a higher amount of Animal Points than those that were bred in the Nursery. Investing into breeding is a great way to get your park rating up without spending thousands on cloning new individuals. This’ll be especially important come Update 16 when the animals can finally die of old age.[/p][p][/p][h3]Breeding FAQ[/h3][p]Why did you go with placeable nests and birthing beds?
Compared to the other options we thought of, they had the best pros overall. Not only do they act as birth control, but they also allow players to design realistic nesting sites or dens exactly how they want.

Leaving nest creation up to the animal AI wouldn’t have yielded satisfactory results for players and could have even caused navigation issues for baby animals or staff. We wanted to put that choice and control into your hands.[/p][p]
What happens when animals with two different skins breed?
Each baby will be assigned a random skin from their mother or father.[/p][p][/p][p]Will animals fight over nests?
While fighting is not implemented yet, there will be disputes that can occur between females of competitive species if there aren’t enough nests or birthing dens. This is an area we’d really like to expand on in the future!
[/p][p]What happens if I delete a nest or birthing bed?
Deleting a claimed nest or birthing bed will issue a warning popup that will destroy the eggs or pregnancy if accepted.
[/p][p]Can nests become diseased / will there be pregnancy complications?
We’re aiming to add things like that later when vets arrive in Update 16. In the next update however, pregnant animals will consume more food and water at the very least, so there is a little bit of management coming there.
[/p][p]Will animals have realistic offspring amounts?
Since breeding is a yearly occurrence and players can have as many nesting sites as they want, we can’t use realistic clutch sizes. While it’d be cool to see 50 baby sauropods emerge from a nest, it’s less cool to have that happen 20 times in the same month! We need to make things more reasonable for gameplay.[/p][p][/p][p]Does a high fertility mean animals will always have lots of offspring?
There is always a chance that fertile animals may produce little offspring during the breeding season. This is an intentional choice to ensure clutches remain random and varied.
[/p][p]Do I have to worry about inbreeding?
Animals will not breed with direct relatives.
[/p][p]How do I prevent overpopulation?
Species will naturally stop breeding once they go over a certain level of overcrowding in a habitat. Players can also delete nest modules or sell animals once they’re happy with a population level.

Later in Update 16, players will have more control over their breeding populations through feeder supplements. Of course the animals will also die of old age or disease in Update 16, so please look forward to that.[/p][p][/p][h2]Nests in Detail[/h2][p][/p][p]Now that you know how breeding works, we wanted to quickly showcase how much dynamism has gone into our nests. As mentioned above, both nests and birthing beds start as dirt mounds. It’s only once they’ve been claimed that the animal will “build” the module into their desired settings.[/p][p]Thanks to their granular nature, we can do a decent job at replicating nests seen in the fossil record. For example, nests can either be craters, mounds or anywhere in between depending on the species. There’s also a variety of substrates for both them and birthing beds. Here’s how it looks when a developer fiddles with the backend nest controls:[/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]We also have four different egg types including ovoid, round, soft and long eggs that actually sit on the outside of a nest - just like what you’d see from dinosaurs like Oviraptor in real life! Each species can also have its own egg colors, making them even more distinct.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]What’s also cool is that the amount of eggs roughly depends on how many babies are actually incubating. It’s not an exact 1:1 for technical reasons, but if your dinosaur has a small clutch, it’ll be reflected in the nest. And yes, once the babies hatch, the cracked egg shells are also left behind![/p][p][/p][h2]Baby Gallimimus[/h2][p]In case you missed it, we recently showed off some baby Gallimimus on our socials! These adorable chicks frequently run around, chirping and clucking along the way.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Like the other animals in Prehistoric Kingdom, Gallimimus grows up seamlessly from baby to adult! Even though we made the system, it always blows us away seeing it in action. Keep in mind any “popping” seen below is not actually visible in-game at regular growth speeds.[/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]For fans who played the original Steam demo back in the day, the color scheme for our baby Gallimimus might seem familiar! Despite this, our dino artist Cindy swears it wasn’t on purpose. Just a happy little accident![/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]Ground Texture Updates[/h2][p]Last update, we changed the wetland grass in response to community feedback requesting more grass texture diversity. [/p][p]For Update 15, we’re happy to say that the grasses for desert, grassland, scrubland, temperate and tropical have all been updated. The original green and dry grasses have now been moved to Coastal and Boreal respectively. [/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Please note that these changes will impact existing saves, so some habitats may require a repaint depending on which grasses were used. Although this may be frustrating, we’d rather get it out of the way now while we are still in Early Access. Thank you for understanding![/p][p][/p][h2]Mesozoic Environments[/h2][p]For this section, we’d like to highlight our environment artist Nathan who has spent the last 6 months exclusively working on plants. Finally, 32 species and over 200 variants later, this monumental task is finished. Nathan can rest now (he can’t) (sorry nathan).[/p][p]Thanks to these additions, 22 new paleobotany formations will be added in Update 15, greatly expanding the world map in the Excavations menu. To help keep things readable, dig sites now use unique icons depending on if they are Mesozoic, Cenozoic or paleoflora related.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]And with that, let’s take a look at our final paleobotany showcase.[/p][p][/p][h3]Mesozoic Boreal[/h3][p]Boreal has two plant species: a fern-like ground covering called Aculea and a coniferous tree named Athrotaxites. The trees in particular offer a variety of shapes and even dead variants.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]Mesozoic Desert[/h3][p]Desert also has two species. The first is Ephedra, a diverse plant that can look like shrubbery or a tree. The second is a particular mouthful referred to as Welwitschiophyllum. It’s best recognised by its large leaves and cones that grow from its center.[/p][p][/p][h3][/h3][h3]Mesozoic Grassland[/h3][p]Since grasses didn’t evolve until the end of the Cretaceous period, Grassland is a bit of a weird biome! We picked three species that fill the niche of grass coverage in a habitat. These being the low lying cycad Ctenis, the fern Ruffordia and the grass-like Schizaeopsis.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]Mesozoic Wetland[/h3][p]Wetland has some of the most diverse presets in the game with a total of 8 species to work with. You’ve got forests, marshes, horsetails and hydrophytes.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]A new quality of life feature coming in Update 15 is the ability to paint aquatic plants directly onto your lakes and rivers! This is in addition to a water mask toggle that prevents non-aquatic foliage from being painted in water.[/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p][/p][p]With the water mask toggle enabled, specific plants like mangroves, cypress and reeds will generate in water up to a certain depth - making it super easy to create convincing wetlands.[/p][p][/p][h2]New Species[/h2][p]If one surprise wasn’t enough, we’ve got another! Given the update’s theme, we felt it was only appropriate to introduce a species best known for its relation to eggs. Say hello to Oviraptor, a small feathered dinosaur from Mongolia! Originally described as an egg thief, it’s now understood that Oviraptor was but one of many dinosaurs that cared for their young.[/p][p]Unlike most other theropods, the toothless jaws of an Oviraptor are equipped with a beak and dentary bones - protrusions within the mouth that allow them to easily break down various fruits and nuts in the park.[/p][p][/p][p]We can’t wait to show you how this animal looks in-game as we get closer to the release of Update 15. We’ve wanted to bring this animal back for a long time and are so proud to introduce it alongside nesting.[/p][p] [/p][p][/p][p]Created by Sr Yepetto[/p][p][/p][p]Created by brostigy[/p][p][/p][p]Created by Mighty-Boy11[/p][p]Thank you for reading Junes dev diary![/p][p]It’s been very hard to keep breeding a secret over the last few months but we are so happy to finally reveal it in detail to the world. We will have more news next month as we approach the August release for Update 15 and hope you are just as excited as we are for the future of Prehistoric Kingdom.[/p][p]If you’d like to support the game, don’t forget to check us out on Patreon and visit the Steam Summer Sale![/p][p]- The PK Team [/p]

• [p] Facebook[/p]
• [p] Twitter[/p]
• [p] Discord[/p]
• [p] Reddit[/p]
• [p] YouTube[/p]

Welcome to the May Development Update!

The team is currently deep in the midst of Update 15’s production, working on the required code and art for what we detailed last month. It’s been a busy time but worth it seeing all the new things make their way into the game!



With all the new threaten animations in development, it’s been a fun time collaborating across departments and figuring out how the animals should behave. This extends to work on the additional baby animations that couldn’t make it into U14, like the wobbly hadrosaurs and jumping sauropodlets! They are very, very cute.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Though there’ll be more to show with the animals next month, today we’d like to take a look at some of the other things coming in U15!




[h2]Gallimimus First Look[/h2]
Boasting three very different designs (1,2,3), Gallimimus is an animal that requires much attention to detail. Having finalized one of its skins in 3D, we’re ready to provide your first look at the upcoming chicken mimic!



Over the next two months, we’ll be fitting this dinosaur with fresh animations inspired by emus, ostriches and cassowary. To do this properly, we’ve given Gallimimus a unique rig with bones that allow our animators to control its various plumage, not unlike what you’ve seen in our Velociraptor.



[h2]Mesozoic Environments[/h2]


As our array of paleoflora continues to grow (heh), over 180 variants from the Coastal, Grassland, Scrubland, Temperate, Tropical and Wetland biomes have been implemented so far. It’s shocking to think there’ll be close to 200 new foliage items once the Boreal and Desert biome have their paleoflora completed!

Today’s showcase will be focusing on 4 of the 8 environments in-game. We’re excited to see how you use them once U15 releases!

[h3]Mesozoic Coastal[/h3]

[h3]Mesozoic Scrubland[/h3]

[h3]Mesozoic Temperate[/h3]
These Mesozoic plants can look nice in mammal habitats, too!
[h3]Mesozoic Tropical[/h3]


[h2]Animal Nursery Menu[/h2]
Coming in U15, the Animal Nursery menu will be updated with new features, a fresh look and greater responsiveness. This is something the team’s wanted to do for a long while so we’re pleased the time has finally come.

[h3]Animal Gallery[/h3]
Starting with the main gallery page, the animal buttons have been condensed to the left side of the screen. Sorting has also been improved, with the option to sort animals by unlocked, alphabetical order, rating, price, type and clade. A new filter menu allows players to find animals within certain biomes and time periods, just like the Paleopedia.



Here’s an in-depth video looking at how the various sorting and filter options work in practice.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Animal Preview and Incubation[/h3]
Once an animal has been selected, the menu transitions into the animal preview, displaying its basic info and customization options. The animal preview can be changed to show either a fidget, walk or idle animation.



In the bottom right you’ll find all the ways that an animal can be changed prior to incubation. Some of these options include new toggles that can select a random skin, sex, maturity or neoteny stage for each created animal. It’ll be a lot easier to create diverse looking groups!

Another change is in the animal preview itself. Unlike previous iterations, the preview will be completely accurate to the individual you’ll create! This means that with each press of the creation button, the animal preview will update to reflect individual variation and random mutations.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Customization[/h3]
As part of this update, we’ll also be introducing a new skin editing panel. From here, you’ll be able to override not just an animal’s color and size variation, but activate mutations like albinism, too.

With these overrides enabled, sliders appear to adjust the overall size, hue, saturation and value of an animal. We’ll be working to extend these sliders slightly above and below the natural variation range so that players have a bit more flexibility beyond what’s shown below.


[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


Created by Francoo192


Created by acrogiga2004


Created by Incog



Thank you for reading May’s dev diary!

We’ll be back next month with another blog post to discuss Update 15 and show off even more content. As mentioned previously, we’re aiming to release this update in July, so stay posted!

Until next time,

- The PK Team

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Welcome, Park Managers!

This patch for Update 14 fixes various issues and adds a new screenspace global illumination effect under the 'Indirect Lighting' quality setting.

We expect that this will likely be the last support patch before the team moves onto full production for Update 15 with its expected release in July. We're aiming for the first PTB to start in late June. Please check out future Dev Diaries for more updates!


[h2]Additions[/h2]

• Rendering
  • Added Screen Space Global Illumination to the game, helping to light shaded areas more realistically. Its quality can be set in the ‘Indirect Lighting’ setting in the Options Menu

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Animals
  • Animals will now only engage in the Play Chase behavior when near the group destination, so they don’t get distracted when the group is moving
• Staff
  • Reduced max staff count to 2048
• UI/UX
  • The ‘Social’ group tab is now disabled for baby animals, since they can’t form social groups. Instead, the ‘Family’ tab is selected by default for them
    
  • Upgraded the save/load menu to use the same layout and visual style as the rest of the game’s GUI
• Environment
  • Updated wetland grass texture to feature a mix of soil and grass
• Foliage
  • Adjusted Field Elm coloration
    
  • Adjusted Marula coloration

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Crashes
  • Fixed animals caching references to animals which had been sold or otherwise invalidated, which could have caused crashes
• Animals
  • Fixed animals getting stuck on corners, and reduced false negatives in nav adherence checks that were contributing to animal teleports
    
  • Fixed baby animals filling their nutrition and hydration bars at super speed
    
  • Fixed a logical error that was preventing animals from validating their roam destinations relative to the group destination, causing animals to roam far and wide regardless of the group
• Staff
  • Staff gates will now keep better track of who is walking through them, including the first person character controller, and should not remain open anymore
• UI/UX
  • Fixed the Nursery animal preview animations being stuck on a glitchy loop - animals should be back to playing their fidget animations, with babies having a chance of playing their specific baby animation too
    
  • Fixed a small oversight causing animal exhibit preference bars to not produce a tooltip on hover

[h2]Performance[/h2]

• Fixed memory leaks in vegetation tracking
  
• Environmental reflections are now baked for each time of day and weather combo, reducing the stutter and potential performance degradation from the real time probe used previously

Welcome to the April Development Update!

In case you missed it, Update 14 is now available! This enormous update adds baby animals, seamless growth, herding, first person and a number of other exciting changes. We’re currently 30% off on Steam until May 2nd so if you’re interested in trying the game, now’s a great time!



We’re also very proud to announce that our adorable mascot, Crowny, now has her very own YouTooz plushie! Once she’s gone, she’s gone for good, so be sure to get your orders in on time.


[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]



Wow, what a month. Since the update launched, we saw our player count peak at 702 concurrent users, the highest it’s been since launching into Early Access. It may not sound insanely high compared to bigger games but it tells us that things are going in the right direction.

In terms of supporting Update 14, we’ll be delivering another patch in the next few days to address some of the remaining issues. Problems like animal teleportation are proving difficult to determine, but we will continue looking into it. We’ve also (hopefully) resolved problems with the Epic Games service, so the update should be going live there soon.




Looking ahead to Update 15, the plan is to release a Public Test Branch version in late June, with the full update coming in July. Since we’ve only just entered full production on this update, all the imagery below will be done with mockups.

[h2]Animal Behavior[/h2]
Our primary goal for U15 is to expand our animal behaviors, building upon the herding and social groups that were just introduced. The first of these goals will be to make animals look at each other with head IK, greatly improving the sense of realism in shared spaces.



Next, we often see feedback wishing that PK’s animals would interact with each other. Currently, all species coexist in complete harmony, which has never been our long term goal.

For this next update, we’d like to build upon U14’s animal awareness systems and support the foundation of combat with two important behaviors: fleeing and threatening.

Fleeing, as you might imagine, forces an animal to run away when they’re scared. Threatening, however, uses a new animation to show an animal firmly standing their ground. Combined with the angry vocalizations from U14, we hope to get quite a bit of dynamism out of animal encounters.



Now, beyond scaring away potential predators, threaten animations will be especially useful for socially competitive animals like Triceratops, giving them a way to challenge the herd leader and influence their own social hierarchy. Less competitive animals like Dryosaurus, however, will passively establish their hierarchy in the background, opting for whoever is the largest.

[h2]Paleoflora[/h2]

Paleoflora is a new gameplay mechanic that aims to reward players for using foliage from the correct geological era. Typically, this boils down to using Cenozoic plants for mammals and our brand new Mesozoic plants for dinosaurs.

[h3]Unlocking the Past[/h3]
At the start of a Challenge game, players will only have access to modern day Cenozoic plants - all the essentials you’ve come to know and love. This is great news for all the mammals in your park, but not so much for the dinosaurs!

Luckily for them, the Excavations menu is going to include paleoflora sites from all over the world. Players will need to send out Science Teams and recover enough material to unlock 35 different species of extinct plants across all 8 biomes.



Once unlocked, players will be able to find their newly discovered plants in both the modular building menu and the revised landscaping menu coming in Update 15. There are a lot of variants coming with these new species, so creative players will have planty to work with.



[h3]Adding Paleoflora[/h3]
Inside an animal’s info menu, you’ll find the Paleoflora bar. As you might guess, this bar fills up by using plants from the correct era, depending on when an animal lived.



Unlike other requirements like the forest or water needs, Paleoflora has no minimum value. Think of it more like a bonus to get the most out of your enclosures. Getting it wrong won’t make your animals upset, but you’ll be missing out on the key benefits that come with a high level of Paleoflora:

• Ecology Bonus Points
  Increase the rating of your animal with an ecology bonus by getting its Paleoflora bar over 50%
  
• Browsing Enrichment
  Herbivores gain additional enrichment when browsing from foliage in habitats with high Paleoflora
  
• Wellness Increase
  Once disease is added in a later update, high levels of Paleoflora will reduce how susceptible animals are to environmental diseases

[h2]Browsing Behavior[/h2]
Browsing is a new enrichment behavior coming in Update 15 that will allow herbivores to gain stimulation from grazing on bushes and trees. The more era-appropriate the foliage in their habitat is, the more enrichment they’ll receive.



Since browsing is not a substitute for feeders in Challenge Mode, we plan to include a Sandbox option that allows herbivores to gain food while browsing, making them self-sustaining as long as they’ve got plants. This has been a highly requested feature from the community, so we’re excited to finally work on it!



[h2]Dietary Requirements & New Feeders[/h2]
As one of the last notes for this Dev Diary, we’ve got some dietary changes coming in U15. First up: if an animal eats multiple diets, they’re going to need them in the habitat to be happy. This change is meant to stimulate the logistics economy by making lesser-used diets like fruit, fish or insects more of a requirement than a suggestion in Challenge mode.

Exactly how many of the diets an animal wants in a habitat will be determined per species, with some being pickier than others.



To help ease players into this new approach, we’re going to be introducing a couple new feeders! The team is aiming to include small food trays, faux meat/fish carcasses and faux logs with fruits and insects to make your habitat planning more engaging. We hope to show how these look in a Dev Diary closer to release!

[h2]Paleobotany[/h2]
Finally, if your first look at Paleoflora gameplay wasn’t enough, we’ve got a few more plants for you. Below are two new species coming to the Temperate biome, offering a variety of shapes and sizes. We suspect the addition of a plane tree is going to get a lot of use from builders!



And last but not least, here’s a look at our first Tropical plant, a fossil cycad. The variations on this one are particularly diverse. It almost looks like a palm tree!




Created by ASSASSINSPINO


Created by Francoo192


Created by Ovenator



Thank you for reading April’s dev diary!

We will be back next month to report on Update 15’s progress. Thank you to everyone who has checked out or played Update 14, we’re incredibly happy with the feedback so far. As mentioned the team are working on another support patch that we hope to get out soon, but beyond that, we hope you have a lovely May.

- The PK Team

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Welcome, Park Managers!

This hotfix resolves some of the immediate issues reported by the community, though we're still looking out for crash reports and more information about teleporting animals. If you have reliable steps to reproduce teleports, please let us know!

[h3]Known Issues & Additional Notes[/h3]

• Issue: modular lighting is not recolorable during the day, but does work at night
  
• Issue: animal avoidance is currently broken, so animals can end up walking through each other
  
• Issue: animal animations in the Animal Nursery are currently broken due to the addition of babies, we will be fixing this
  
• Note: additive animations can trigger during one shots or right before animals go to eat/drink/rest. We would like to stop this from happening to prevent jank
  
• Note: we will be updating Paleopedia and Info Sign screenshots for animals that have received visual updates in a later patch

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Balance
  • Changed refund logic for modular structures:
    • Facilities/pieces now refund the entire placement cost
      
    • Vegetation items don't refund anything, but instead have a demolition cost
  • Any modular items with a demolition cost now can't be demolished if the park balance is negative
• Animals
  • Reduced osteoderm detail strength on baby Ankylosaurus
    
  • Adjusted face shine for all Psittacosaurus
    
  • Animals with a social group size of 0-0 will have their socialization need regularly set to full
    
  • Socialization need will no longer drain while resting, sleeping, eating, or drinking
• UI/UX
  • The park balance text at the bottom of the screen now turns red when the park balance is negative

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Crashes
  • Potentially fixed a crash related to viewing animals in the nursery. We would appreciate continued reports if this persists!
• Critical
  • Fixed month progress not loading correctly for saved games
    
  • Fixed an undo/redo issue causing the balance to not restore correctly when undoing modular object placement
    
  • Fixed a save/load issue that could cause legacy settings (such as Animal Aging) to be reset upon loading a save
• Gameplay
  • Fixed animal exhibit preference calculations using the wrong crowding math, resolving an issue where the exhibit bar was stuck at 72%
• Animals
  • Animals will now load in with the correct locomotion state for their maturity
• Staff
  • Fixed staff walking straight towards their destination through obstacles if their path was interrupted by construction
• Construction
  • Fixed another instance of grid desync when splitting grid-bound pieces from modular groups
    
  • Fixed instability in Gates that could have created strange behavior
• UI/UX
  • Fixed missing social bars for solitary animals in the Animal Info menu
    
  • Fixed outline colors being reset to white
    
  • Fixed path outlines not appearing on highlighted paths during demolition
    
  • Fixed wrong portrait icon being assigned to Lambeosaurus
• Rendering
  • Fixed modular piece glitchy rendering when the camera is close

[h2]Performance[/h2]

• CPU Optimizations