Beasts of Bermuda News

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h3]Added new playable creature:[/h3]



[h2]Oryctodromeus Burrowing[/h2]
[h3]Digging Tunnels[/h3]
+While above-ground, the Oryctodromeus can dig a tunnel entrance by pressing the Ability key.
-Once the entrance has been dug, it can be interacted with by pressing the Use key
+While underground, while in dig stance, the Oryctodromeus can dig new tunnel nodes in any direction by using LMB, and can fill dirt in any direction by using RMB
-Holding the Ability or Look Up keybindings will cause the Oryctodromeus to place a node upwards, rather than in the direction the camera is facing
-To dig a burrow exit, dig upwards until you get near the surface. Once close enough, it will show that you can place an exit rather than another tunnel node
+To exit the burrow while underground, either look at the exit and press the Use key, or press escape and select 'Leave Burrow'
-Leaving a burrow by the Escape Menu has a standard combat timer just like logging off or logging to another creature

[h3]Dirt Carrying[/h3]
+While in a burrow there is a dirt jar HUD on the left side of the screen.
-When this dirt jar is full, you cannot dig more tunnels
-To empty the dirt jar, either fill in tunnel nodes that have already been dug, or exit the burrow, which causes the dirt to automatically place itself around your burrow entrance
-Every time a tunnel node is dug two dirt is added to your dirt inventory, and filling in a tunnel node only subtracts one dirt.

[h3]Attacking while in a Burrow[/h3]
+To attack while in a burrow, press the Special keybind.
-This swaps between dig stance and attack stance.
-While in dig stance, the dirt jar HUD element is visible. You can dig by using LMB and place dirt by using RMB
-While in attack stance, the dirt jar HUD element is hidden. You can peck by using LMB and use Sand Attack by using RMB
-You are always in attack stance while outside of a burrow

[h3]Sand Attack[/h3]
+While above ground or while in attack stance, the Oryctodromeus can use Sand Attack by pressing RMB.
-This attack blinds your opponent for a few seconds.
-Talenting into Sand Hoarder increases the effect of this special move.
-You cannot hit party members with Sand Attack.


[h3]Auto Jump[/h3]
+To auto-jump while in a burrow, either press jump while already in the air or press jump twice while on the ground. If there is a suitable burrow ledge to jump up and onto, auto-jump will activate and bring you up
-This can be used by any creature, such that larger animals that may find themselves in a burrow can navigate different heights without getting stuck
-You cannot auto jump into passageways that are too small for you to fit otherwise

[h3]Burrow Scent[/h3]
+Burrows that have been active in the past fifteen minutes release a purple scent at the entrance
-This uses the same timer as the Despawning Mechanics section describes, so it's an easy way to check if your burrow needs its despawn timer refreshed

[h3]Claustrophobia[/h3]
+Added a new debuff named Claustrophobia.
-This debuff significantly drops comfort and damage output while in a burrow.
-The Oryctodromeus is immune to Claustrophobia.
-The talent Vigilance mitigates the effects of claustrophobia.
-The Velociraptor now has Vigilance in place of Heavy

[h3]Talents[/h3]
+Vigilance increases the distance one can see while inside of a burrow.
-For creatures that are not an Oryctodromeus, it also reduces the negative effects of Claustrophobia.
-Currently, only the Oryctodromeus and the Velociraptor have access to this talent.
+Burrow Master increases both the amount of dirt you can carry before exiting a burrow to empty your dirt, and increases the amount of tunnel network entrances you can have
-Tunnel entrances belong to tunnel network chunks, so it is normal behavior for adjacent chunks to allow a player to spawn additional entrances
+Swift Claws increases the speed at which an Oryctodromeus can dig, as well as reduces the amount of Ability digging consumes
-It also allows an Oryctodromeus to enter or exit a burrow more quickly
+Sand Hoarder increases the time that Sand Attack lasts, and reduces its Ability cost as well


[h3]Tunnel Network Saves[/h3]
+Tunnel network save data is saved in a separate file titled 'DynamicWorld' on servers. If, for any reason, servers need to wipe all tunnels on a server, deleting this file will do so safely without loss of any other save data
-Deleting this file will not cause loss of creature save data or saved profile data for players on the server

[h3]Despawning Mechanics[/h3]
+Tunnel networks despawn after 72 hours of inactivity.
-Activity constitutes being present in the burrow while an activity tick happens
-Burrow activity ticks every 15 seconds, so make sure you stick around for a good few seconds while inside a tunnel network.
-Tunnel networks chunk to the nearest 10,000 UE units in each dimension (seen by typing displaycoords into the console)
-This means a node at coordinates is controlled by the tunnel network chunk centered at
-When a tunnel network chunk is refreshed, it also refreshes every adjacent tunnel network chunk in each dimension (27 chunks total, making a 3x3x3 cube, each of which represents 10,000 UE units on the X, Y, and Z axis).
-You do not have to be an Oryctodromeus to refresh a tunnel network's despawn timer

[h3]Misc Burrowing Info[/h3]
+Necrophobia does not apply to creatures inside a burrow
+Burrows have group icons that show up if the entrance belongs to either you or a member of your party. These burrow group icons show up only while close to the burrow. They can greatly help in finding your way back out of a complicated tunnel network.
+Logging off of a creature and then reselecting it for play will move the player above-ground at the location of the last-used burrow entrance
+Contact with water while underground will also move the player above-ground to the last-used burrow entrance
+Pressing Escape and selecting 'Leave Burrow' will allow a player who has gotten lost or stuck to leave a burrow and port to the last-used burrow entrance location, but this has a combat timer, much like logging off or swapping characters


[h2]Combat Game Mode[/h2]
+While in the combat game mode, the player is now always brought to the creature creation screen, rather than the save selection screen
+While in the combat game mode, none of the player's creatures will save
+In Combat game mode, Necrophobia is no longer present for herbivores near carcasses
+In Combat game mode, points are now scored for killing members of your own species
+Significantly reduced the amount of points the blue crystals in the cave give
+Fixed: Player score now properly reduces by 65% every time the player dies or respawns
+Fixed: The Kills and Deaths info now properly displays on the player list
+Fixed: The number of talents given to freshly spawned players is now correct

[h2]Skins[/h2]
+Added the Shimmer Ichthyovenator skin for event participants
+Added Fire Eel Ichthy by DJZ and Triptrap
+Added Swan ichthy by Natahi4 and Twilightwolf
+Added Sea Dragon Ichthy, by Omnomnivore and Natahi4
+Added Marsh Ichthy by Omnomnivore
+Added Butterfly Fish Ichthy by Twilight and Natahi4
+Added Hollow Ichthy by Triptrap and Vendi

[h2]User Interface[/h2]
+Totally revamped the Escape Menu
+Totally revamped the Dino Select UI


[h2]Map Work[/h2]
+Fixed the lighting issues on Forest_Island
+Added Forest_Island2 to the game once more (old map, was around pre-Steam release)
+Misc fixes and issues on Rival Shores and Ancestral Plains

[h2]Language Localization[/h2]
+Danish is now supported
+Turkish is now supported

[h2]Balance / Mechanics Changes[/h2]
+Swapped Velo's talent Heavy out for Vigilance (burrow visibility / claustrophobia resistance)
+Players no longer play a distress call when grabbed, which prevented action from being taken during the call
+Ungrouped herbivores now stress each other
+Herbivore herds are now restricted to having a maximum of 3 different species types per group. Admins can invite beyond this, just as they can with carnivores.
+Reduced the effectiveness of the Whipcrack talent. It now takes 3 talents to get the effectiveness of 2 in the previous patch
+Slightly reduced the apato's tail curling, such that it cannot wrap quite as far along its body towards its front legs
+Saichania no longer suffers food poisoning from eating cacti
+Piscivores now gain food satiation from eating carcasses left by dead players and from destroyed eggs
+Improved Mosasaurus' turn rate while darting by 40%
+Improved Lurdusaurus' turn rate while darting by 20%
+Reduced the minimum size of the use key trace when searching for plants to eat, which was making it hard for very small creatures to eat without eating adjacent plants as well
+Velo's bite attack now costs 6.5 Ability Power, up from 5.0
+The stamina and ability power tick now pauses while dart is active
+Altered tornado target seeking such that it avoids flying or swimming creatures
+Increased lag hit threshold size such that less legitimate client-side hits are rejected server-side due to client-server disagreement
+Female aquatics now have a 30 second time window to possess their own egg
+Improved Pachy's uphill sprinting speed
+All animals can now pick up plants more easily, and plants in general weigh less
+Significantly increased the speed of hatchling aquatics
+Being larger than 1.0 no longer influences how momentum and slopes interact with your movement speed
+Dead creatures no longer automatically get deleted after 48 hours
-This hopefully flushes out a bug where dead creatures have been deleted before the 48 hour timer has run
+Toggling the resource display or HUD now hides the ory dirt meter, the ory burrow digging meter, and the krono lunge meter
+The 'Press E to Use' interaction messages now hide if you have the HUD set to hide


[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]
+Fixed: Pteranodon, Velo, and Rex now blend their swimming and eating animations properly
+Fixed: Players with duplicate names now show up properly on the player list
+Fixed: The Persistance talent no longer interacts with Thick Hide and Sharp Teeth
+Fixed: Players who load from save data now properly initialize talents server-side
+Fixed: Odd behaviors with groups if a player created multiple groups using the same creature while other group members were offline
+Fixed: Aquatics can now consistently breathe air from steeply graded river surfaces
+Fixed: Knockback or falling doesn't interrupt apato's attacks anymore
+Fixed: The egg's camera now properly attaches to the egg, rather than floating way above the egg
+Fixed: Soft group caps should now properly work and apply correct comfort loss client-side to players in overcrowded groups
+Fixed: Eggs should no longer cause players that go back to creature screen to have black void from burrow & egg overlay in every case.
+Fixed: Eggs possessed and then left by the player no longer chirp if the player does a vocal
+Fixed: Settings in the keybinds window regarding mouse sensitity, etc, now saves and loads properly
+Fixed: It should play dart animation as ichty when darting and grabbing at the same time now
+Fixed: Ptera should no longer do running animation while swimming
+Fixed: Pachy's neck no longer behaves erratically while it is in the sitting position
+Fixed: You can no longer select and start as another creature from the dino selection screen while a pending request to join a nest exists, leading to undesirable game behavior
+Fixed: The 'Too Old to Swap Skin' message no longer comes up if you swap between creatures on the dino selection screen
+Fixed: Satiation now behaves properly when eating multiple plants at a time
+Fixed: Display messages informing the player of an increase in friendship grade between them and another player now properly display the correct grade
+Fixed: Apato can no longer turn faster than it's supposed to by pressing the jump key
+Fixed: Under certain circumstances, the keybinding menu would break one of the movement key bindings, setting it to 'None' and disallowing the player to properly set their keybinds
+Fixed: Velo walking grabbing animation and Velo swimming grabbing animation
+Fixed: Creatures no longer stand slightly off the ground. This was particularly noticeable on small animals like velo
+Fixed: Carnivores now have an animation for jumping and eating at the same time instead of playing the walking animation.
+Fixed: Krono can no longer begin lunging while it is still playing an attack or vocal animation
+Fixed: You can no longer use the 'Lay a Nest' keybind while in an egg
+Closed Pachy's mouth, and Megalosaurus now plays a different animation while eating while underwater

Screenshots by Detestation, Callie, and Triptrap.

Its time for another video-making event, this time for the brand new Ichthyovenator! To participate, please read over the Rules and Guidelines! Failure to follow the rules may lead to disqualification!

[h3]How to Enter[/h3]
You will need to join our Official Discord, and message the following format in a private message to the user EchoAlien:

Participants:
Video Link:
Spotlight Bonus:

For Participants, The first number is the Steam ID64, the center is the individuals name, and the right is the Discord Dev ID. Please use Google if you do not know how to find the Steam ID 64, or the Discord Dev ID!

Spotlight Bonus is only needed if you have more participants than the limit, otherwise you can leave that out. Those in Spotlight Limit will only receive the skin if your video entry is a favorite of the official game staff!

Entry Example:

Participants:
76561198083026152 IndigoBlue 317764420753293322
76561198015374176 EchoAlien 168665144442748928
Video Link:
[Insert Video Link Here.]
Spotlight Bonus:
None


[h3]Shimmer Event Rules, Guidelines, and Limitations[/h3]

The Beasts of Bermuda Official Staff (Moderators and above) reserve the right to deny skins to participants who are offenders regarding the Event and its rules for any reason deemed appropriate by the Staff, including but not limited to bad behavior, falsifying information, or finding loopholes within the conditions written for the event. Participants who break these terms can be reported, and if adequate proof is provided, and they cannot provide counter evidence to defend themselves, may be denied the skin, and if the offense is bad enough, or retaliation occurs, may also be banned from future events. If you have questions regarding these conditions, contact the Head Moderator or Quality Assurance Manager.

[h3]Event Guidelines and Requirements[/h3]

Avoid being any shorter than the minimum, or longer than the maximum for your video entry:
Minimum Video Time: 30 seconds.
Maximum Video Time: 20 minutes.

- The creature the Shimmer is for must be featured as the primary subject in the video. This can be done with gameplay recording, or other means that are listed in the examples below. If your entry does not contain game footage, it must contain some other indicator that the video is connected to Beasts of Bermuda.

- Must contain more than just raw game footage if you are choosing gameplay as your route for your entry. (Raw footage is recording the game with or without sound, and then uploading it without doing anything else to it.)

- Doing any of these things to/for your video can potentially qualify you to recieve the skin, and are listed here as examples, but may not be the only limitations if good effort is noticable:
- Adding Music, Sound Effects, Memes, or other things of that nature throughout your video.
- Speed Paints.
- Animations.
- Vocal work (such as Documentaries or "Lets Plays".)
- Scene switching.
- Other forms of editing such as adding text, or special effects.

- You do not require high-end hardware or software to enter. Having watermarks in the video as a result of using trial on a program, or having bad FPS will not effect your chances of getting the skin as a normal entry. The only thing this may effect is your chances of getting Spotlight on the Announcements when the Event is over.

[h3]Additional Conditions[/h3]

- One skin per person (You may pick which account, but may not put your alt accounts as participants to gain more skins for yourself. Getting caught attempting to do this may result in denial of skin from all known accounts of the offender.)

- Max number of Participants is 5 (five) people.

- If your video has more than 5 participants, and the video is picked as a favorite of the Staff to receive a Spotlight in Announcements, all participants for the video will receive the skin. Spotlight videos are chosen by vote by the Official Beasts of Bermuda Staff, and are selected based on overall visible effort, quality, and uniqueness, so do your best if you want to try to earn Spotlight.

- This event is NOT a contest! If you meet the basic participant requirements, up to 5 people of your participating group will still receive the skin, earning Spotlight only allows the qualifying video to earn skins for higher than the 5 participant limit.

- You must communicate with those planning to participate and clarify between your participants(if there are more than the max permitted number of participants) who will get the skin prior to putting the work in, in the event that your video does not get Spotlight.

- Participants count as the following:
- Actors who are aware and made prior arrangements with you to be involved in your video.
- Recorders
- Video Editors
- You cannot include non-participants to receive the skin unless they qualify in one of the above categories.

[h3]The event ends on July 25th at 11:59PM EST![/h3]

[h3]Ichthyovenator[/h3]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

+Replaced the old Ichthyovenator model with a new, updated model
-The new model has underweight, overweight, and baby morphs
-The new Ichthy has three skins:
Lizard, by Twilightwolf, concept by Natahi4
Striped, by Callie, Triptrap, and Omnomnivore
Deepsea, by Triptrap and Omnomnivore
-Ichthy currently is missing its 4 and 5 calls. This is normal.


[h3]Megalosaurus[/h3]
+The Megalosaurus has been going to the gym over the past week. It has been buffed back up quite a bit.

[h3]Mechanics Changes[/h3]
+Your head now looks straight forward while darting as ichthy, lurdu, mosa, or elasmo
+Improved ease of interacting with foliage for small animals
+The talent Nimble Footed now increases your turn rate while swimming or falling, both for aquatic and terrestrial creatures
+Lowered volume of waterfalls

[h3]Balance Changes[/h3]
+Reduced Kronosaurus' swimming turn rate by 33%
+Reduced Mosasaurus' ability power scaling past 1.0 by 50%
+Reduced injury damage recieved by struggling out of a mosa jaw from 50 to 40
+Increased Kronosaurus' lunge time by 1.5 seconds, to 2.0 seconds total time lunging
+Buffed the Slippery talent such that 2 talent points invested now give the benefit 3 used to give
+Slightly reduced mosa grab hitbox width
+Elasmosaurus can now struggle out of a Mosa jaw, just like Lurdu and Ichthy
+Kronosaurus damage scaling now behaves like the rex - less damage while small
+Increased Mosasaurus base damage from 140 to 165
+Reduced the ability power tick size scaling on Mosasaurus, such that at larger sizes, ability power ticks arent reduced by as much
+Increased Kronosaurus upfront lunge cost to 30 ability power, up from 20
+Decreased Kronosaurus lunging coil cost to 10 ability power per second, down from 12.5


[h3]Bug Fixes[/h3]
+Fixed: The Megalosaurus sacred skin now works properly with the model update
+Fixed: Soft group cap comfort drops now work properly when players are out of net-relevance range with one-another
+Fixed: Double tapping and holding the use key no longer causes some animals to slide along the ground.
+Fixed: It is no longer possible for sprinting to be slower than walking if you stack several movement speed-reducing mods on top of one-another (pregnant, fat, carrying stuff, etc)
+Fixed: The Megalosaurus dew claw now properly connects on the baby morph
+Fixed: After darting, animals should no longer continue sliding around on the terrain if the darting angle was high and the terrain is steep
+Fixed: Pressing escape while transitioning to the save select screen no longer results in an escape menu UI jam that forces the player to leave the server
+Fixed: If a carcass finishes rotting while being carried, it no longer jams your jaw open and jams you with carry weight you cannot get rid of
+Fixed: Megalo's Claws now properly recolor
+Fixed: Group icons no longer get stuck on-screen for players who are behind you
+Fixed: Pachy no longer starts gaining ability power while charging if it does a head butt
+Fixed: The Powerful Lunge talent now properly returns more ability power to the player when they hit with lunge, rather than less
+Fixed: Friendship is now accounted for when considering damage from Pachy's charge or Krono's lunge attack
+Fixed: Aquatic creatures no longer indefinitely slide along the terrain if they jump onto land
+Fixed: Various reported map bugs on Rival Shores
+Fixed: Velo, Acro, Megalo, Ichthy, Tyrannosaurus, and Pachy no longer stand up to play vocal animations while crouched
+Fixed: Skin name edit being ignored if not pressing enter
+Fixed: The afk timer now properly updates while working on skins, preventing the player from being kicked from the server due to inactivity while doing so
+Fixed: Underwater blur staying on screen when out of water

Screenshots by discord community members: Katze, Bite, Indigoblue, River, Lazulie, and Callie.

While this patch is heavily geared towards fixing bugs that are currently causing problems on our public branch, it does have another nice surprise in it! Cαllie has done some improvements to our Megalosaurus model! She also gave it a baby morph, a fat morph, and a starvation morph! Here's a picture of the new baby morph! You'll need to go over (or under) eat to see the fat and starvation morphs!



+New (public): Improved the Megalosaurus model
+New (public): The Megalosaurus now has a proper morph target to
indigate being over (or under) fed
+New (public): The Megalosaurus now has a baby morph target

+Fixed: A FPS spike no longer occurs when dropping held foliage bundles
+Fixed: Order of operation issue that could, on rare occasion, cause another server crash.
+Fixed: Eggs should no longer save duplicates when possessed by a player, saving, and the server restarting or crashing.
+Fixed: Bleed damage is now influenced by friendship grades while in a group with another player
+Fixed: Rare but existing crash on startup for servers with old (patch 1.1.910) dead entities data. If that'd occur, the server would no longer start. Servers may get messages about dead entities being culled when the server starts. These entities hold invalid data and reviving them would otherwise cause problems.
+Fixed: Fixed a crash that could occur when trying to spawn an entity with an invalid index
+Fixed: Logic error that would cause inconsistencies when saving or updating data at runtime (e.g switching creature, getting nested, etc), and cause rollbacks and similar issues.
+Fixed: The player list now sorts alphabetically once again
+Fixed: Server crash related to the server saving while garbage collecting
+Fixed : All console commands that are either explicitly blocked or allowed should now reliably be returned as blocked or allowed by the IsCommandBlocked and IsCommandAllowed functions
+Misc: Group Finder messages in chat no longer show up in global chat if the player is muted. They still show up in party to alert party members of who's doing the name changes.
+Fixed: Group icons no longer flicker in the top left corner of the screen when the player transitions across net relevance range
+Fixed: The background image on the talent screen now properly displays when you first open the talent screen
+Potentially fixed the "VerifyTimeout" crash happening when loging in (deleted the command, and made a timer that self destroy this actor in case of timeout)
+Fixed: Kronosaurus and Elasmosaurus can no longer use regular attacks while out of air
+Fixed: Skin Saving works properly

Screenshots by Triptrap and Predatoria

+Fixed: server side crash caused by spawn point selection
+Fixed: Flicker bug on lower settings than TAA when raining (can be tested with setweather)
+Exposed new save system's autosave timer under the config section:
[/Script/BeastsOfBermuda.SaveSystem]
AutosaveTime=120
Default is 120 seconds.
+Fixed: rare client side crash that could occur if skin templates don't get initialized early enough
+Potential server side fix for the GC crash causing rollbacks & the server to crash while it is saving.
+The save system now waits for the garbage collector to finish running when saving, and then blocks its scope to prevent GC from running in this scope and cause a crash.
+Fixed client side crash that could occur when spawning on a server with lots of people.
+Added Type Animation, Map, and Graphics for the bug reporter, along with a button to append one's current location to the report.
+Server side crash that was caused by a latent process running after a client joins
+Client side crash that could occur when entering net relevance range (not guaranteed fix, couldn't reproduce in PIE)
+Data that is not recognized when a server loads is now discarded, instead of crashing the server immediately
+Fixed client side "Dark lighting / void" visual glitch when entering water and leaving, then looking around in the distance, or when looking in the distance underwater
+Experimental: Increased GC tick rate to two times a minute instead of once a minute, should reduce frame hitches while it runs (especially on servers with a lot of people)