Hey everyone, got another huge bunch of fixes and improvements done in this update. There have been a few pretty deep-rooted issues introduced in v0.12.0 around disappearing player characters and bad inventory state that have hopefully been fixed for good. Please do let me know if you still see your character disappearing or any of the other issues mentioned in this update that should have been fixed.
Improvements
Improved third-person melee attack targeting to feel much more reliable - the attack check was only done from the crosshair, but now it factors in the zone directly in front of the character
Increased mouse drag distance detection for dragging item stacks so it's easier to shift+click an item instead of accidentally dragging it
Prevented naturally growing plants from blocking structure placement
Removed unnecessary AI idle pathing calculations that were causing a performance drop
Loosened structural connection logic when taking apart certain building pieces - taking apart a sole plate will no longer destroy the posts it's attached to unless that post has no other sole plates, and taking apart support beams will no longer destroy attached floors/posts as long as there are other beams taking the load
Added a popup alert when autosave takes longer than 2 seconds. During testing it seems that there are cases where a long-running autosave could destabilize the world state and cause all sorts of artifacts to appear. Forcing the game to pause helps eliminate that risk. The alert is bounded to 2 minutes so the game is still recoverable if there is a save-related hang
Fixes
Fixed error in inventory management causing a cascading failure and potential disappearance of player (and hand cart) as the player moves around
Fixed exiting the game during an autosave causing the resulting save to be corrupted in certain ways - generally you would see your character disappear with only held weapons/backpack visible after loading such saves
Fixed missing player character after a load from the above described bad save. Unfortunately there is no way to recover the correct player customization options so the character will default to the initial male character
Fixed objects disappearing when looking up in third-person mode on the second or third floor
Fixed sit interaction for co-op joining player not cancellable
Attempted to prevent frozen UI/controls for co-op joining players when awaking from sleep
Fixed error causing Elric's item hand-in task to not progress
Fixed interaction range calculations to avoid UI appearing and disappearing instantly after clicking on an object to move towards it and interact
Fixed hostile creature behavior not properly respecting "aggression" values after v0.12.0 overhaul - this was making coyotes and wolves continue to attack when they should be backing away
Fixed creature and NPC melee attack ranges being longer than they should be
Fixed boars never becoming hostile and ignoring player attacks
Fixed held wooden shield collider interfering with and preventing proper hand cart and wheelbarrow use
Attempted to reduce/eliminate instances of terrain modifications reverting when leaving and returning to an area - please let me know if you still run into this
Fixed co-op players not seeing Elric when he first visits the player camp
Fixed some interaction edge cases where pressing ESC could leave interactions stuck instead of cancelling cleanly
Fixed a lot of missing localization errors when running the game with a Turkish locale set on your computer
Fixed items inside mud brick kiln getting wet even when protected under a roof
Prevented letters from being delivered to NPC fire pits
Fixed large objects sometimes disappearing at the edge of the screen during certain camera rotations
Fixed a ton of uncaught errors that were filling up log files and reducing performance
Other changes
Added a few more details in the log files to help identify game and world state when logs are sent to help fix issues