Penkura News

Dev-Com.

Patch 0.1.2.1 introduces a new item, new features, bug fixes but most of all a much-needed project clean up from all pass systems that could have affected the stability of the entire project.

Penkura went through many engine version and player request changes that affect a large number of game systems, this patch will make sure that all those changes won't affect players saves and improved in-game gameplay elements.

With the patch, we also introduce a quick reference bar to make inventory management a bit easier, fixes for the audio system, inventory system, and RTS system.

And as always, for more information regarding the latest technical support, patches, and updates please join our Discord Community.

LINK ----> https://discord.gg/2ukYHQm

For more information about the patch please visit our Patch Notes Archive.

LINK ----> http://penkura.com/patch-notes/

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Patch 0.1.2.1
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BUG FIXES:

- Command Center didn't calculate it's energy correctly.

- Player won't be able to select and swap empty slots in the inventory and storage.

- Inventory slots properly reset their function if we closed inventory/storage with slot selected.

- The object won't fall through the landscape in a larger cluster of objects

- Doors Open/Close sound won't stop playing if sound effect settings ever are set to 0.

- Fix for doors open event triggering animation after few seconds of delay, rather than instantly.

- Fix of 53 background calls to nonexisting objects.

- Karenos outdoors Ambient won't restart if anything makes any sound louder than the ambient.

- Buildings ambients won't stop playing if too many sounds play at once.

- Opening door sound effect won't take priority to mute interface activation sound effect.

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IMPROVEMENTS/CHANGES/ADDITIONS:

- Quick Reference Bar added to the game (similar to hotkey bar, reference bar will not directly contain items but will allow a swift check and use of an item from the inventory or inform the player that the item is no longer in his possession)

- 5 Quickslot controls added to the controls tab.

- Save/Load system will now save quick reference bars and load them to correct characters within the game.

- Every character able to be possessed has their own Quick Reference bars with the correct size depending on character equipment and in the future skills (At the time maximum of 5 slots).

- Optimization of all outer armor textures (buildings). (lowers memory requirement)

- Optimization of all normal maps mega atlases. (lowers memory requirement)

- New Component type item added to the project (Basic Electronic Repository)

- Basic Electronic Repository blueprint added to the MMC.

- Scanner blueprint rebalancing.

- Improved Save/Load System to allow Saving and Loading Underground Ore Deposits.

- Underground Ore Deposits content and discovery marks are now saved and their data transmitted directly to RTS system (Overseer System) on load.

- Minor visual improvement of all crystalline liquid panels (all type of solar panels).

- All Item based objects (stimpak, nutrino bar, ore and so on) can now detect the player location and based on it change their own detail settings, visibility, shadows quality, and physics to increase overall performance.

- Item-based objects have a much more sensitive collision detection which should prevent object clipping, falling through the landscape and flickering when objects are hitting each other at larger speed.

- A small adjustment to notification messages only high priority notification such as tutorial messages will have a sound notification.

- Improved visual effects of holo sing.

- Refresh of all door animations in the game with the use of the new float base animation system.

- Doors sound effect is now spawned in the correct location within the door and destroyed after the correct event.

- Construction bot call sound effect lowered to reduce audio clipping.

- Doors locked / incorrect password / open sound effect lowered to reduce audio clipping.

- Holographic Character presentation takes over 95 % less Memory to properly showcase all post-processing effects.

- Pener-07 Ammo Screen scaled up to fit the weapons screen.

- Ore Extractor dig sound effect lowered by 20 % and sound range increase by 30 %.

- Added direction sings to Epsilon Base.

- Added Level of details to Karenos Landscape (minor performance boost)

- Light improvement in the Gemini Base (minor level performance improvement)

- Additional security added for all buildings to make sure that correct "plug" is loaded after starting the game from older saves.

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Dev-Com.
After over a month we are finally able to release Penkura patch 0.1.2. It's a massive push forward in project stability, performance and most of all feature implementation.
While moving to a new engine version we used the opportunity to go back to all of our scripts, animations, materials and 3d models. Players should see a performance boost, their save/load time decreases, much fewer hitches and most of all, their older saves should be able to adjust them selfs to the new game version without much of a problem.

Besides adjustments, of over 70 % of the in-game code, two systems were written from the ground up, in-game 3d visual interfaces (all the screens on computers, door controls, biomatter and so on) and mission system.
Each in-game screen from now on will know what creates them and adjust their engine usages accordingly to make sure they take as little from the CPU as possible, while still updating all the necessary data in the background. This change should increase overall performance and project stability by preventing useless data from being stored in memory.
Missions system required a massive update, thanks to changes made to preload systems and in-game situation adjustments, we are finally able to not only update already implemented mission but add new without the need for the player to restart the game each "content patch".

The same concept of adjusting older saves to prevent players from restarting their entire game was implemented to over 41 background functions, systems and prerendered data (such as new items locations, building systems and of course new missions).

Thanks to all of those changes and implementation of new corruption prevention systems we are finally able to work fully on much-needed content patches.

And as always, for more information regarding the latest technical support, patches, and updates please join our Discord Community.

LINK ----> https://discord.gg/2ukYHQm

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Patch 0.1.2
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BUG FIXES:

- Hydrogel Purificator is not presented correctly while building by C.A.T.

- Default Unreal Icon was set in place of Penkura.icon in task manager and toolbar.

- Unreal Icon appears on the Game Window with an incorrect name.

- Penkura is shown as UE4Game in the Windows Task Manager.

- RTS Arrow Connectors spawn inside buildings and already used connectors.

- Stimpaks hover in the air if dropped from the backpack.

- Load system won't remove Editor placed buildings from the game.

- Save system won't add editor created content to new versions of the game if loaded from the older game version.

- Missions log didn't save entire missions description on mission update, showcasing only the current point of the objective rather than all of them.

- Tirix Fusion Power Plant provides energy even when it's turn off.

- Tirix Fusion Power Plant emergency shut down didn't reset its animation.

- Tirix Fusion Power Plant ambient sound plays even after being shut down.

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IMPROVEMENTS/CHANGES/ADDITIONS:

- 59 animations of doors, tramps, player, buildings, etc. are adjusted for project transfer to new engine version.

- Clean up of 31 background calculation scripts (increase in performance by an average of 6%)

- Elimination of 132 empty ticks working in the background (minor performance boost)

- Project engine update to a newer version.

- Each screen showcasing building status is now refreshed only when the player is in the observation distance, rather than each frame. (small performance boost)

- MMC screen will refresh its information when the player is directly interacting with the machine or machine is in the process of item creation, rather than each frame (small performance boost)

- CCC screen will refresh only when a player is directly effecting RTS, BOT or Command Center status, rather than each frame. (small performance boost)

- All construction in the game calculates their Z position by the Z position of nearest "Command Center" rather than per construction. (lowers preload calculation)

- Small static object connected to each construction is now merge with the main building layer lowering objects to load. (small performance boost).

- Ore Extractor sound lowered by 20% and increase its range by 10%.

- Beacon sound lowered by 10%.

- Minor graphical improvement to Hydrogel Purificator.

- Save/Load system updated to remove buildings placed by developers if the player removes them by destroying them or dematerializing them.

- RTS Arrow Connector System is written from the ground up with the use of a new tracing system.

- RTS system will now provide energy and oxygen to all buildings in an asynchronous manner which reduces hitches on massive player basses.

- RTS building snap system now calculates its position based on the building entrance/exit rather than building offset. (fix for small offset errors while placing buildings).

- Significantly reduce RTS system calls and triggers when the game starts by an average of 70% (reducing the chance for any error and speeding upload).

- RTS Arrow Connectors are now created based on RTS requirements rather than buildings. (reducing the number of unneeded objects in the game)

- Buildings support legs calculate their position and offset based on the entire base position relative to their Z offset from the terrain before they are spawned in the game by the RTS system. (fix for performance hitch while placing a building).

- Added object clustering system, merging distance object into a single mesh. (boost to a performance by up to 8% depending on the number of objects on the screen)

- On load landscape, the foliage will now automatically disappear in and around buildings rather than slowly disintegrate as if the building was just placed by the player.

- Atmo. Airlocks spawned by buildings (not directly by the players) will also disintegrate landscape foliage.

- Lowers the amount of "game start" calculations made by each base from 52 to 9 dramatically lowering its CPU usage in the first few ms. (speeds up the game load and removes hitch at the start of the game from the base site)

- Buildings and bots will now have pre-set base affiliation rather than on game start c.

- Minor improvement to save/load system background calculation. (game load speed increase by around 10 %)

- Computer controls for Doors and holographic pointers are now calculated per player effect, not in the game per tick manner. (small performance boost)

- Added levels of details to:

| Gemini Main Temple
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| Gemini Secondary Temple
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| Gemini Cave System
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| 7 sections of tramp tunnel
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| All Gemini boxes, barrels and other containers
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| Gemini Generators
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| Gemini Underground base objects
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| Gemini main base
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| Gemini Lamps
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| Gemini Tramp
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| Gemini Tunnels and Registration Office
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| Gemini furnitures
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| Gemini NPCs
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| Gemini Tramp elevator
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| Hydrogel Purificator

- Minor improvements to Gemini Lights.

- Minor improvements to Gemini Occlusion system.

- Improvements to Atmo. Airlock Level of details (lights won't disappear at a short range)

- Save files are now tagged by the game randomly generated seed in preparation for any randomly generated systems in the future. (old save files before the change will adjust themselves automatically to new game version)

- Asynchronous load system will now load objects between 30 to 50 % faster. (depending on the save size)

- Save and Load system will now recognize editor (non-player) placed objects, systems, scripts, animations, and sound.

- Save system is now able to save and load scripts created by other scripts for gameplay purposes (for example randomly generated items in randomly generated storages with randomly generated effects)

- Improvements to Save/Load version conversion system (old saves will now much more smoothly adjust them selfs to a new updated version of the game, lowering need for new save files only to critical patch changes)

- Project clean up (reduction in game size)

- Audio volume adjustments for minor sound effects.

- Added "Lock" function to containers (at the moment nonplayer controlled). If the container is locked, a message will appear on player text board and sound effect will be triggered.

- Added randomly generated loot system to containers, and building containers.

- Added "player interaction" check for all storages, containers, backpacks, and machines that use storage system to prevent the game from recalculating their content after every load/save/new game.

- Dark Matter Cola texture improvemenet.

- Mission log is now able to update already updated part of the mission if the criteria of the missions changes, by the player or the background system.

- Mission log will now update entire descriptions and all pointers in the background if the player closed mission log with the mission already selected.

- Mission log will now print description and pointers only when player directly selects the mission (prevents minor hitches on mission update)

- Mission log doesn't have to be manually refreshed if the mission is updated while players are already interacting with the log.

- Save/Load system will now properly load and save all missions in the missions log and will adjust properly to all changes made to the saved missions.

- Added crash security in Save/Load system, if the system tries to load or save nonexisting part of the game (or corrupt) it will skip that section of the file and keep saving or loading to prevent the game from crashing within the compressed file.

- Added additional Storyline elements.

- Glass and metal materials now calculate reflection per object instance preventing any outside lights from effecting any transparency/reflection effects.

- Improvement to shadow calculation on higher shadow settings (minor performance increase)

- Save system is now able to ignore already saved data if changes are made by the developer to the core game elements, allowing to add nonexisting content to the save file when such content was never stored in the project at the time of the creation of that save file.

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Dev-Com.
Penkura patch 0.1.1.6 is one of the key patches that will allow us to greatly improve our game world. The moment we added new zones to the game increasing playable area by over 300 %, we started to notice problems with every AI-controlled system.

Not only there were massive performance spikes but also most of the AI controlled being stopped working correctly. Now we are introducing completely new AI that will be able to self calculate area around itself depending not only on the player position but also by the current situation (adjusting accordingly).

We are also testing a new way of AI communication which will be similar to a hive mind, one mind to rule them all which drastically increases performance.

And as always, for more information regarding the latest technical support, patches, and updates please join our Discord Community.

LINK ----> https://discord.gg/2ukYHQm

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Patch 0.1.1.6
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BUG FIXES:

- Spawners didn't spawn Tier - 1 beings on the map because of the map size and inability to properly calculate world terrain. C.F.S (Crash Freez Shield) system disabled mobs to prevent background looping.

- Tirix Fusion Power Plant manual reset station didn't print correct information when hovered on buttons and lever.

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IMPROVEMENTS/CHANGES/ADDITIONS:

- Added the first version of self-adjusting AI to the project.

- Changed AI calculation system from self-depending calculating system to a hive mind system dramatically improving performance on open world locations (One mind to rule them all).

- AI will now detect other near AI and "borrow" their terrain calculation to safe CPU when calculating movement routs.

- AI will now map area around itself depending on the player location rather than the entire map.

- AI will spawn and despawn itself to improve performance depending on player position around the map and locations of closes spawn points.

- AI will interact with the player and lose interested if certain conditions are met.

- AI will adjust self-health and self-resistance depending on possessed being.

- Player, Bot, and AI are on different trigger layers to make sure triggers activate only when needed.

- Improvements to foliage render should prevent sudden popping of different level of details, unnatural specular (when no light source is located nearby) and re-rendering the same foliage twice (small performance boost).

- New highlight and object classification system. Object registration is now over 400 % faster. (small performance boost).

- Adjustments to highlight image effect.

- Added Ambient sound to Power Storage when activated.

- Changes to building classification. Building are now classified as (Main Structures),(Support Structures),(Defense Structures) and, (Misc).

- Buildings in the RTS system are now displayed under new classification.

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Dev-Com.
Patch 0.1.1.5 besides multiple small improvements, introduces 3 big changes to Penkura. First update is directed to our save/load system, "load game" section was written from the ground up, game will now load from 10 to 60 % faster depending on save size (Previous save files created on earlier version of this system won't be corrupted, system will adjust old saves to new system).

Another big update is directed to our camera/models rendering almost every model in Penkura was adjusted to new occlusion system which lowered render requirements up to 15 % in certain locations players on weaker machines should see a performance boost from these changes.
Last big update was done to our Biometer Ring.

From the start we planned Penkura to have an as minimalistic user interface as possible, because of that we need to provide the player with a lot of data in a different way. Handheld Map system already provides a lot of data on player and points of interest location, map size, but basic information on player status was accessible only by Biometer Ring, located on user's wrist, we feel that this is not enough.

From now on, Biometer Ring will provide voice cues in critical moments, such as when the player starts to lose oxygen, or his vital sinds drop to a critical level. In future patches, we will add even more communication between the player and the game environment.

And as always, for more information about the updates, progress and known bugs please join our Discord Community.

LINK ----> https://discord.gg/2ukYHQm

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Patch 0.1.1.5
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BUG FIXES:

- Hydrogel Purificator and Tirix Fusion Power Plant have visual errors in 3d holographic presentation.

- Text window blinks if multi messages are given at once.

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IMPROVEMENTS/CHANGES/ADDITIONS:

- Ambient Occlusion added to the camera rendering process.

- Ambient Occlusion Checkbox added to Main Menu.

- New foliage type added.

- Biometer Ring now provides critical status by voice.

- Added Low Oxygen level, Critical Vitals and Below 40 % Oxygen audio cues.

-Biometer Ring now checks player status more precise.

- Changes to player Vital (possitive or negative) are now printet on text window.

- Points of interest discovered by the bot will now be saved to the player map.

- Small improvemenets to foliage placement system (should be less empty spaces randomly found in the forest).

- Update to Trees level of details (small performance boost).

- Update to rock formation level of details and shadow render (small performance boost).

- Complete model change of all mountains.

- New Item added to the game (Neuclir the Antitoxin shot)

- New blueprint for crafting added to the game.

- Save system now saves buildings energy and oxygen status.

- New save system added to Penkura, should reduce load time and lower the chance for error while loading.
(old save files will adjust to the new save system automaticly).

- Improved occlusion to all Ancient structures (small performance boost).

- Added new level of details to Hydrogel Tank Structure and improved occlusion (small performance boost).

- Added level of details to Power Storage, Lamp, Ore Extractor, Tunnel Type (I, I Windowed, T, T Windowed, X) Solar Panels, and Beacon structures (small performance boost).

- MMC and CCC are now occlude with the new system (small performance boost).

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Dev-Com.
In patch 0.1.1.4.3 we focused on the map system, improvements to camera rendering and tweaks to animations, UI, Sound.
Playable area in Penkura is getting larger and larger and with soon to be added new biome that will dramatically increase playable area we needed to improve the map system with much-needed markers/pointers.
We are still improving camera shaders and save system hoping to speed up the game even more without loss of any graphical quality. Game should be much sharper less blurry when moving at high speed and most of all, it should load/save faster.

And as always, for more information about the updates, progress and known bugs please join our Discord Community.

LINK ----> https://discord.gg/2ukYHQm

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Patch 0.1.1.4.3
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BUG FIXES:

- Location text, time text, and Status text (appearing in key events) slow down the game till it disappears.

- On rare occasion, an incoming message window didn't disappear after the end of the call.

- 3D map can't be interacted with if we interacted with any 3d user interface such as MMC or CCC.

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IMPROVEMENTS/CHANGES/ADDITIONS:

- Map system will now show each discovered point of interests.

- Markers in the map system will now display their name when hovered over.

- Map system will now show each OWNED bots/drones.

- Added legend to map.

- Update to object highlight system (improved system should showcase object name much more clearly and display an icon showcasing what effect will be done to the object)

- Improvements to camera render and antialiasing (objects, particle effects, and light effects should be much sharper putting fewer strains on the eyes)

- Player and points of interest markers now show their correct name when hovered over.

- Points of interest adjust marker icon depending on type.

- Points of interests text and animation adjusted to the new optimize system.

- Save system will now check if any points of interest were discovered and save properly.

- Added animation and graphical improvement to call message.

- Added sound informing the player of an incoming message.

- Player request changes to tutorial message font. (bigger and easier to read font)

- Added animation to the tutorial message window.

- Dialog system NPC text will now estimate the speed of the voiceover and implement speed according (for performance sake this effect have a small power in the background calculation which may lead to text becoming slightly faster or slower)

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