Beta0.9.97 Inland Lakes, Portable Fridge And Other Appliances
Inland Lakes & Portable Appliances
Last time we shipped the complete spray paint system and the minimap.
This time the world gains inland lakes, reflections and refraction on the water, and reeds and seagulls along the shore.
We have also added a whole set of portable appliances: a mini fridge that keeps food fresh, an induction stove you can drop anywhere to start cooking, and a solar box that charges your batteries.
🌊 Inland Lakes
Added inland lakes as a new terrain feature: a small lake covers 1 chunk, a large one spans 2-3 chunks, and every map scatters a few of them at random; existing saves will also generate lakes in the areas you have not explored yet. If an old save's map is already fully explored, no inland lakes will appear.
You can fish in lakes, just like at the sea. The PDA world map and the new map preview both have a dedicated lake icon.
Lakeshore ecology: dense grass and reed-like bands grow near the water, giving way to shrubs further inland; the bank is dotted with rocks and scattered odds and ends (stones, worms, bait and the like, just right for fishing).
Botanic Infected show up around lakes more often (the total number of zombies in a lake area is unchanged, only the mix of types).
Added seagulls: they roost in flocks along lake and sea shores, and about a quarter of them stand in the shallows a tile or two from the bank; shoot one down and it becomes an ingredient (a dead seagull can be grilled).
The middle of a lake is deep — swim out too far and you will drown, exactly the same rules as the sea.
💧 Water Surfaces Fully Reworked
Water now has reflections: characters and objects on the bank are mirrored in the water and sway with the ripples; puddles left by rain reflect too.
Added refraction: shallow water lets you see the sandy bottom and your own legs below the surface, growing murkier the deeper it gets.
Things that fall in really do sink: corpses drop below the surface (including corpses loaded from a save), dropped items turn blue and translucent but can still be picked up, meat chunks and severed limbs sink to the bottom, and blood no longer floats on the water.
Zombies and animals now get the water entry effect as well, submerging body part by body part just like the player; wading shadows and bloody footprints are no longer drawn on top of the water.
Fixed acid spreading onto water covering the entire surface, and fish and floats in the water rendering at the wrong layer.
🔌 Portable Appliances
The equipment row previously called "Lighting Tool" has been renamed "Handheld Device", so you can carry one more device alongside your light source.
Added 8 craftable portable appliances: Portable Mini Fridge, Portable Induction Stove, Electric Kettle, Portable Charger Box, Solar Charger Box, Electric Air Pump, Hand Warmer and Handheld Fan. You can find them while looting, or unlock all 8 crafting recipes at once with the new "Portable Appliances" node in the skill panel.
Portable Mini Fridge: put a battery in it and keep it in your backpack to slow food spoilage.
Portable Induction Stove: drop it down and it is a stove; pack it up and take it with you when you are done.
Electric Kettle: boils contaminated water into clean water.
Portable Charger Box / Solar Charger Box: recharges batteries; hovering over one highlights every battery in your backpack, and the battery being charged has a blinking outline.
Electric Air Pump: re-inflate tires straight from the vehicle inspection panel, without taking the wheel off.
Hand Warmer / Handheld Fan: slowly raise or lower your body temperature, and switch off automatically once you are back to normal, to save power.
Items that draw power show a status dot in the top-right corner of their slot: green = running, yellow = standby, red = out of power.
Dismantling an item with a battery compartment now ejects the battery before taking it apart.
🎀 Appearance
Added 6 headpieces for female characters: Cat Ear Headband, Bunny Ear Headband, Ribbon Bow Headband, Polka-dot Hair Ribbon, Flower Crown and Maid Headdress. Female zombies and female survivors have a chance to wear them.
The character panel has a new "Show / Hide Headgear" button that cycles through three states: show everything → hide clothing hats and masks → also hide helmets. All equipment effects still apply, they are simply not drawn.
🏹 Crossbows
Fixed crossbows dealing only half the damage of a bow of the same tier — the crossbow damage bonus was never being applied, so real crossbow damage doubles on the spot.
Fixed "Tactical Reload" giving crossbows only the penalty and none of the benefit (taking it actually made you slower).
Character creation gained two new skills, Crossbow Power / Crossbow Reload, and two new traits, "Crossbow Lineage" / "Clumsy Arbalist".
🔫 Combat & Visuals
Crit and kill markers reworked: a crit is a yellow cross with bursting shards, a kill is a red cross "stamped" on the target; they only appear on your own hits, and the pixel-art style is shorter and snappier.
Barrel overheating is now visible: firing continuously makes a section of the barrel glow red, giving off heat haze and wisps of white smoke that fade once it cools.
Allies no longer disappear out of sight: hired NPCs no longer become invisible because they stand behind you, behind a wall or outside your field of view — as long as they are on screen they stay visible, showing a translucent silhouette when a wall is in the way.
🎒 Inventory & Items
Auto-sort now works in two stages: it first lays everything out "neatly", and when that does not fit it automatically switches to a dense layout to pack in as much as possible (with a notification), so you no longer get "there is clearly space but it will not fit".
Fuel can be stacked now; when you drop a stack into a fuel or material slot, the part that does not fit is no longer thrown on the ground and stays where it was.
Ranged weapons gained a [Load Ammo] button, so you can pick the matching magazine directly instead of having to find it by hand.
Fixed removed magazines showing a weight of 0; fixed the corner label disappearing for liquids over 50000 ml, and amounts over 1000 ml are now shown in "L".
Fixed the right-click menu of empty bottles missing "Pour out" / "Drink".
Fixed the expanded food stack panel not closing together with the backpack.
Fixed the four issues with duplication / invisible items / wrong counts caused by dragging food from the ground into a food stack (the fridge steak bug).
Fixed some pistols not being dismantlable.
Switching weapons with a hotkey while holding a blueprint now correctly leaves placement mode.
🔧 Building · Repair · Vehicles
Tire slots in the vehicle inspection panel gained "Patch With Tire Sealant" and "Repair with Air Pump", so you no longer have to take the wheel off first.
Containers you built yourself no longer have to be "searched" once before you can put things in or take them out.
A flashlight / night vision device that was on before you got into a vehicle is switched back on when you get out; this also fixes torches being invisible in a vehicle while still burning through durability.
🌍 World & Environment
More copper: added "Copper Scrap" (the old "Scrap Metal" is renamed "Iron Scrap" accordingly), and 22 kinds of electrical / plumbing world objects now yield copper when dismantled; copper veins now yield as much as iron veins.
Mech / spider robot wreck destruction reworked: they now explode only after falling over, with the red light flashing faster, a stronger blast, and thick smoke and heat rising from the wreck.
Fixed indoor objects being sorted wrong after loading a save and drawn on top of the foreground wall.
Goods on shelves now fade out together with the shelf, instead of completely hiding characters standing behind it.
Fixed wells covering the crops in front of them, supermarket shelves keeping their sprite but rotating their collider when their facing changes, tentacles being left behind after a tentacle zombie dies, and arrows that cannot be recovered still showing the white pick-up ring.
Drawing water from a well no longer alternates between contaminated and clean water; the Pressure Water Gun now takes both contaminated and clean water.
Fixed half of the grass you planted disappearing after loading a save (a timing issue in when terrain changes were written to disk).
🧑🤝🧑 Allies & NPCs
Fixed NPC scavenging being broken end to end: the loot rolled by the six scavenging actions was discarded on the spot, so NPCs actually brought nothing back.
NPCs can now find supplies inside containers (previously the first search always came up empty). The container's own loot is still rolled separately when you open it yourself and cannot be taken by NPCs; containers you built yourself never roll loot.
⚙️ Interface & Experience
The list on the left of the crafting panel now has a selection highlight, so you no longer have to read the details on the right to tell which entry is selected.
Thermal Vision got a reworked red-and-white heat gradient, and enemies that used to be invisible in it now show up.
The minimap no longer draws sea water in the ground color, and gained a vehicle position marker.
Fixed the game window still following the mouse and controlling your character while it is in the background / not focused.
Fixed "Equipped ..." notifications popping up during the black screen of a save load.
Fixed Healing Smoke only exploding after being thrown, producing neither smoke nor healing.
Fixed cooking dish names not matching the fish actually consumed: Pan-Fried Minnow → Pan-Fried Bass, Corn Catfish Stew → Corn Trout Stew.
Fixed weapon attachment durability and flashlight power draw being misread in locales that use a comma as the decimal separator.
Feedback
If you encounter any issues during gameplay, you can report them through the built-in feedback center, Discord or by email.
For localization or translation-related issues, please use the in-game feedback center or contact the developer directly by email. Or perhaps you would like to contribute to language localization.
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