Prehistoric Hunt News

Greetings dinosaur hunters!

We’ve released a hotfix related to Custom Maps Update. It addresses multiple issues related to the update.

• Minor improvements to mission UI
  
• Fixed mission from being stuck when the location was already found.
  
• No longer able to start “First steps” mission when in custom map.
  
• Updated Finnish translations
  
• Equipment inputs are prevented while player is being created to prevent equipment from going stuck while setting up initial weapon.
  
• Updated contract menu dinosaur description UI and trophy lodge dinosaur description UI.
  
• Loading screen now blocks inputs.
  
• If an invalid map is selected user will get a notification.
  

Thank you for reading and we look forward to hearing you thoughts.

Greetings dinosaur hunters!

A fresh update is here! It includes custom maps with map editor, a composite bow, reworked dinosaur models among other improvements. Check out these patch notes to see all included content.

Watch the patch video here:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


Players can create custom maps and publish them for others to play through Steam Workshop. These maps can be played both in solo or in multiplayer.
Custom maps have been in our public beta for over a month now and we did get a lot of feedback, thank you for that! Here are some screenshots of maps created by users GodEater and HeartOfTheWild (Thank you for your effort! ːsteamhappyː) that are available to play through Steam Workshop:





To use the map editor have a look at these testing version instructions:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Please note that these instructions don’t contain all the updates we have done during the testing phase. We will be releasing an up-to-date version of the instructions later.

Here are some highlights what you can do with the editor:

• Choose map size from Medium (2x2km) and Large (4x4km). And you can choose to create an island or inland map
  
• Generate a base terrain according to set parameters to accelerate map creation
  
• Create roads
  
• Create areas and generate own textures and objects on them
  
• Create special locations
  
• Add custom objects
  
• Generate gameplay elements
  

A new composite hunting bow is now available. Compared to the old tribal bow it’s more deadly and easier to use over longer distances due to less arrow drop. It does cost a bit more though. It’s also very silent to use so you won’t spook your prey. With it comes new ammo type called Carbon Arrows that you will find in the shop or loot boxes.




The old Compsognathus model has been replaced with a totally new one with new textures and animations.




Pachycephalosaurus got a rework too: New model, animations and textures have been released in this update.

• All dinosaurs will now spend more time still either idling, eating, drinking or sleeping depending on the species.
  
• Larger carnivores hunt less herbivores.
  

Two new dinosaur carcass markers have been added to both the environment and the map view. Once you’re near a dinosaur carcass a dino skull icon will appear on top of a carcass. This will help you identify any corpses in dense environments and is helpful especially with smaller dinos. The icons are displayed until the dinosaur has been claimed.

In the map view you will see a red dot for a new dinosaur carcass. You will only see these markers for dinosaurs where you are the killer as indicated in the trophy screen. If you hover the red dot icon you’ll see what species it is. The icon is shown until the dinosaur has been claimed.






Dinosaur carcasses take priority over footprints and blood marks when using interact. This will be helpful especially with compies.




Walk, crouch and other secondary animations have been improved. The character movement on different terrain feels smoother now. The animations better match footsteps. Sidesteps happen at the same speed as forward steps. This improvement also fixed the issue with swaying hands while playing with slower FPS.


A new stand is available in trophy lodge: Small stand. You can use it to display Compsognathus.




All dinosaur description texts were improved by our community members BonzerK, God Eater, Megatron and Oblivion is at hand. Thank you for your help!


You can now reset your key bindings to default by holding C and R buttons in main menu. A message will pop up when the reset has been done. This will help in situations where some mistaken key bindings would prevent the player from doing anything in the game. You no longer must go to Windows registry to reset settings.

• Heart and lung shots cause a lot longer bleeding. A heart shot will eventually be deadly for any dinosaur.
  
• Improved upper body animations in third person characters
  
• Improved performance of mangrove trees
  
• Optimized weekly walk server data. Past challenges now ordered from latest to oldest
  
• Weekly challenge list can be scrolled.
  
• End time of past Weekly challenges is shown.
  
• Weekly challenge reward can be obtained in Weekly Challenge menu too (no longer only in main menu).
  
• Leaderboard entries are shown at top of scroll list even when low entry count.
  
• .700 Double rifle iron sights were reworked.
  
• .50 Cal rifle iron sights were improved.
  
• Updated French and German translations (Thank you MagSouille and NQ!)
  

• Fixed rejoin functionality in multiplayer
  
• Client players see correct clothing on other players
  
• Fixed syncing of gloves for 3rd person characters
  
• Fixed issue where other players in multiplayer could have multiple guns on hand at once
  
• Fix for 50 cal reload animation where the right hand would bug out sometimes
  
• Holding breath no longer triggers while gun is recovering from fire. (No more slow-motion effect when recovering)
  
• Fix for holding breath causing weirdness in animation when stopping aiming or starting to reload.
  
• Fixed Brachiosaurus stomp sounds happening while standing still idling.
  
• Fixed translation errors with new translation validator.
  
• Fixed animation while using callers or binoculars while running.
  
• Fixed issue with camo net and hide functionality that caused player to be unable to change any equipment
  

Thank you for reading and we look forward to hearing your thoughts. What would you like to see next?

Greetings dinosaur hunters!

We wanted to make a separate post about our longer-term goals regarding the game. The game has been in Early Access over three years now and we’ve learned a lot during this period. We are thankful for all the great people who have shared their feedback and ideas during the years and supported us 😊 Let’s keep on going!

We have created a good foundation for many features like the dinosaur AI over the years, but they still need some time and polish for them to be fully ready. New content will also be created as we want to add for example new dinosaur species and weapons.

Below you can see our roadmap. It is a rough presentation, and some items will change, be removed and new items will be added. Please have a look and tell us your feedback!

Greetings dinosaur hunters!

We are continuing to bring more species in the form of Stegosaurus and Parasaurolophus. Custom map editor has got a lot of updates since the start of testing period which we’ll introduce here. And the Pachycephalosaurus rework is nearing completion.

Thank you for your support! We are grateful for the feedback we’ve gotten during the custom map editor testing phase as it has provided valuable information regarding the improvements needs. We are still continuing to work on it and other aspects of the game and any feedback is welcome! ːsteamhappyː

Check out more in the dev highlights video below:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


Pachycephalosaurus rework is almost complete with new model, textures and animations.




Stegosaurus will be coming to the game and the model is currently being worked on.




Parasaurolophus is another addition to the species. The model and animations are being created.




Custom map editor beta is available in public_test branch, please have a look at these instructions how you can try out the newest version https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/752900/view/6273023611545311969?l=english

Since the start of the testing period we have done the following improvements to the editor you can already see in the public_test branch:

• In the terrain menu you can find new option "Generate base terrain". This will generate you a base terrain with customizable parameters: Height scale, noise scale, island size factor and elevation curve type.
  
• Fixed edit interaction with some objects
  
• Added notifications for generation operations which didn't have any
  
• Road can be regenerated (Select road and press again generate road)
  
• Objects not saved, terrain not saved & gameplay not generated statuses were added to some operations where it was missing like edit
  
• Road, area and grass generation is now multi-threaded
  
• Added redwood trees
  
• Added radio tower
  
• Blocked contracts from dinos that are not on the map
  
• Fix for workshop sometimes loading the wrong map when joining the game
  
• Added many new tree and bush models
  
• Dinosaur pathfinding has been improved. To get benefit of this improvement you need to regenerate gameplay for your custom map
  
• Fix for contracts causing errors when no suitable dinosaur found on custom map
  
• Custom map performance improvement
  
• Terrain brushes have a new option: Brush falloff. It creates smoother edges to your brush. It works with Raise, Lower, Paint and Flatten functions.
  
• When using base terrain generation with Flatmap the edges won't have water anymore
  
• Water lootboxes are generated to map
  
• Game freeze fix when loading custom map with missing files
  
• Fix for when first playing a custom map and then the normal map it would go a bit crazy
  
• Fix for equipment sometimes not showing on other players' hands
  
• Fix if player tries to edit a map before creating any maps
  
• Map marker can no longer be put outside of map
  
• Fix for missions which locations are not in custom map
  
• Added a new palm object
  
• Improved dropdown scroll speed
  

In addition to the points above we are working on custom object support so you could bring your own models to your maps.



Thank you for reading and we look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Greetings dinosaur hunters!

We invite you to participate in testing of the new custom map editor! You can help us by trying out the test version as we want to hear your feedback on the current set of features. Check out instructions in this post and video user guide.

Here is a user guide video of the custom map editor which showcases it’s main features:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

The current features of the custom map editor are:

• Terrain creation tool: Alter terrain height, textures and grass with help of automatic generation
  
• Create mountains: Place mountain stamps to speed up terrain creation
  
• Area creation tool: Create different areas and biomes to different areas
  
• Road tool: Create roads that follow environment shapes
  
• Create objects: Place single objects on the map
  
• Create special locations
  
• Testing menu with possibility to walk in the map, change time of day and place posing players
  
• Define which dinosaurs will spawn on the map
  
• Automatic generation of gameplay elements
  
• Publish to Steam Workshop and play in multiplayer workshop map
  

The testing version of the game utilizes different server. You won’t be using the same player in the test version but start from zero with a fresh player (if you didn’t participate in development testing before). Once you move back to the main server you will continue progress with your existing account and lose any progress made in the test server.

Before you start transferring your game into the open testing mode please make a backup of your player.txt file. It can be found in %steamlibrary_folder%/Prehistoric Hunt/Prehistoric_Hunt_Data/player.txt . The file contains your trophy lodge setup and it will be overwritten if you don’t take a backup. Once you move back from the test version to the actual game you can copy this backup file back to it’s original location.

Please note that when you have the test build active you cannot launch the actual game. When you want to switch back to it in the Betas-menu you will need to choose ‘None’ to get back. You can freely switch between the versions.



Right click the game name in Steam library list view and choose ‘Properties’. Then choose tab ‘Betas’. From the dropdown choose “public_test”. Steam will now download the test version and you’ll see in your library view instead of “Prehistoric Hunt” name “Prehistoric Hunt [public_test].



Watch the video in the beginning of this post to learn the main features.

Please note that some generation operations might freeze the game for a few seconds while they are running. It’s advisable to wait for them to complete without clicking anywhere.

You will find the custom map editor in the main menu by going to PLAY – MAP EDITOR. When starting your first map choose CREATE NEW MAP and when you come back to edit it choose EDIT MAP.

Created maps are stored in %steamlibrary_folder%/Prehistoric Hunt/Prehistoric_Hunt_Data/maps/ with own folder for each map. We recommend you to backup this folder regularly so you can revert unwanted changes!

We will summarize feedback on our Discord about the tool.

Thank you for your support! ːsteamhappyː