Welcome, Park Testers!
This PTB release resolves a number of issues in addition to adding basic threaten/fleeing behaviors, look targets and grazing fidgets for when herbivores idle.
Depending on the animal group, species will try to flee, chase off or threaten animals. Some highlights include looking at courtships, herbivores becoming more defensive if they have a family, animals fleeing from predators or large theropods threatening each other if they get too close.
These behaviors have been brought over from the nest defense previously included in Update 15 so keep in mind that it'll be massively improved once combat releases next year in Update 17!
Animals will now look at other creatures around them! Adults will prioritize immediate relatives and their own species, while babies will look at their parents and other species more commonly.
We've also added new idle grazing fidgets for when herbivores are standing around. As this isn't a dedicated grazing behavior, the animation can still play regardless of an animal's underlying terrain. This might be something we look at in a future update.
The Public Testing Branch (PTB) is a version of Prehistoric Kingdom that can be opted-into on Steam, containing experimental and potentially breaking changes. With the help of the community, we're able to hunt down various issues and gather feedback before pushing a an update to the public version of Prehistoric Kingdom.
Right click Prehistoric Kingdom in your Steam Library
Go to Properties
Betas
Select 'ptb_public_testing'
Please note that it is not recommended to play Public Testing Branch parks on earlier versions of the game. Please send feedback and bug reports to our Discord server's appropriate channel.
THIS IS A DEVELOPMENT BUILD WHICH MAY RUN WORSE FOR SOME USERS! THIS ALLOWS US TO GATHER MORE DATA FROM BUG REPORTS!
Look targets and threatens are relatively experimental additions to the game that will be evolved through updates
Head IK can be a bit jittery, especially when transitioning out into an extreme animation (e.g. Gallimimus preen) - we'll be looking to improve this as much as we can in the future
The camera can be jittery when tracking an animal due to head IKs
The head IK is currently enabled when animals are spawned, making them look up
Defensive animals may get stuck in a threaten loop for a while but one should eventually emerge victorious
When fleeing, animals can sometimes walk away instead of running, making them seem very chill!
NEW FEATURE: Animal Look Targets
Animals will now look at other creatures around them! Adults will prioritize immediate relatives and their own species, while babies will look at their parents and other species more commonly.
NEW FEATURE: Basic Threats & Fleeing
Animals will be able to threaten and run away from threats if they get too close. Highlights include some species becoming more defensive if they have a family, while others will run away from predators as much as possible. This is an area we will be overhauling for Update 17 in the future!
Animals
Added idle grazing animations:
Ankylosaurus
Coelodonta
Dryosaurus
Elasmotherium
Gallimimus
Leaellynasaura
Mammoth
Muttaburrasaurus
Nasutoceratops
Ouranosaurus
Oviraptor
Pachyrhinosaurus
Paraceratherium
Protoceratops
Psittacosaurus
Scelidosaurus
Styracosaurus
Triceratops
Added courtship to Ouranosaurus
Animals
Animals have been given new awareness parameters, like vision range and hearing distance
Awareness now scales with animal maturity
Animals “Sexual Maturity” is now based on being a certain size as well as being in the last third of their maturity
In Family Groups, Eat/Drink priority is now driven by the infants rather than the adults
Buildings & Scenery
Color-corrected topiary pieces so they’re less neon green
Foliage
Redwood bark is now darker in the shade
Crashes
Fixed some crashing related to animal nav updating
Critical
Fixed staff skill and training research loading
Fixed animal excavation progress doubling up when loading games
Fixed user actions not deactivating completely when opening the management menu while an action was active
Animals
Fixed animals slowly speeding up to normal speed when first placed in the world
Fixed animals using IK and grounding effects when they shouldn’t
Fixed animals being able to leave their navmesh if another navmesh was available above or below the point of exit
Fixed Mating Display state being too picky about a minimum initiation distance
Fixed Play Chase state to ensure line-of-sight between path nodes, which should prevent animals from getting stuck on geometry while chasing
“Sexual Maturity” feature fixes animals trying to mate and find nests when they are still too small to occupy the size of navmesh their preferred nest is accessible from
Flee State should be a bit more varied in where it chooses to end at
UI/UX
Fix for the 'Open Research' button in the Staff Training menu linking to the Security tree instead of the Management tree within the Research Menu
Fixed staff menu summary refresh when opening the Staff Menu
Audio
Fixed a spatialization issue for dromaeosaur threaten sounds