Eagles:
A new animal now flies the skies in the world. Eagles will nest in the high mountainous rocky areas. They will regularly leave their nest to scout the landscape to catch prey. They will fish in the lakes (for all fish types) and also hunt small game (rabbits and chickens).
While they don't generally pose a threat to players, they are opportunistic predators and will snatch a hooked fish or small game kill from players. So keep an eye on the skies while hunting/fishing.
Shooting an Eagle while it is clutching prey will cause it to drop it, allowing the player to trace it down and steal the catch for themselves.
Eagle Nests:
Eagle nests can be found high up on rock formations in mountainous regions.
Usually too high and out of reach, players should use their climbing axes to scale the rockface to gain access to nests.
Looting an nest will yield Pristine Eagle Feathers. You can loot the nest while still attached to the rockface, just get close enough, look an the feather and press the use key.
Eagles will become aggressive if they spot you tampering with their nests, so be careful. Note: Killing an eagle will damage it's feathers, so looting from its nest it the only way to acquire the pristine features. Eagle kills are also now tracked in player stats.
Hang Gliders:
Players can now craft Hang Gliders from the workbench. To use the Hang Glider, it must be placed on the toolbelt and equipt like any tool or weapon. When the player begins to fall, the glider will auto-deploy.
The glider will take slow usage damage over time, so keep your eye on it's health so it doesn't break during a flight. It requires Pristine Eagle Feathers to craft (and maintain), so players will need to loot some nests.
Piloting Controls:
Fliers need to careful! Gliding is a dangerous sport, and the glider will not auto-correct to protect the pilot from a perilous crash. I've tried my best to simulate piloting physics, so pitching down hard will cause rapid acceleration while pitching up will trade velocity for upward lift.
While gliding, players can freely move their head around to enjoy the views, while using the keyboard movement keys to control the glider.
Landing:
Be mindful of your speed while coming in for a landing. Use careful pitching to control a slow enough speed to ensure a soft touchdown.
Note: It's currently not possible to exploit flying onto exposed hunter bases. The way I've implemented this may seem crude, but eventually I hope to add more natural means of defense from flying raids.
New Hunter Bases:
I've added several new hunter base designs of all size varieties.
The new designs take advantage of several new building pieces and base items previously unavailable.
I've also added a system that tracks which bases get destroyed by players, so replacement hunter squads can alternate through the different designs to keep things changing-up.
Big Performance/Lag Improvements at Scale:
*This was the largest piece I worked on this sprint*. I've always been aware that when the game world was very densely populated, the CPU would bottleneck performance. This was particularly noticeable for dedicated servers with 10's of thousands of buildables placed, and multiple concurrent players connected.
This would sometimes push the server tick rate down into single digits, and result in extremely delayed response times for clients, high pings (due to the server getting backup-up) and AI teleporting erratically with their movement.
The cause of this was the sheer volume of actors (things in the world) trying to tick (run code) every frame, when the vast majority (over 95%) very rarely needed to update, if ever. I've made some sweeping changes to put almost all actors to "sleep", and wake them only on certain events, rather than each frame.
The impact is huge, as can be seen in these comparison stats, which shows CPU load on a server (at ~75% build capacity) with 4 concurrent players on each. What was previously pinned and constantly running below target tick rate, now sits comfortable with plenty of headroom.
Performance and scaling has always been a top priority. This type of work is hard to express in player-facing patch notes as it doesn't relate to specific features, but I think it's important to mention details when it is such a huge part of the development process.
Increased Mountain Rock Geometric Detail:
The mountain rock formations have had their geometric complexity increased greatly, while preserving a the performant low poly collision meshes.
Big Increase To Server Build Cap:
With the new CPU performance boosts, I've greatly increased the build cap for co-op and dedicated servers.
Dedicated Server Remote API:
I'm implemented a web server into the dedicated server build. This allows for your server to receive remote calls via HTTP, allowing admins to query and trigger events on their server remotely (not needing to be logged in as a player).
An example use of the API would be to post an in-game alert notifying that the server will shortly be resetting, so players aren't caught off-guard during a reset.
Currently the API only has a couple of endpoints, but now it is implemented, provides me a platform to expand it's functionality moving forward.
Documentation on how to configure and use the API (with examples) is outlined in this guide:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2601952438
Physics Based Butcher Animations:
Animal bodies will now physically react to the butchering process, jolting and pulling with the movement of the axe.
Fixed Animal Corpses Disappearing in MP Games:
A highly requested fix from players for a long time. Thanks for your patience.
Also fixed the the animal models blurring for a period of time after they would ragdoll on death.
Dormant Bases While Base Members Offline:
Domesticated animals will no longer die when all base members log off from a dedicated server. They will cease to feed and level up (and will continue when a base member rejoins).
In addition, bases will cease to consume or produce power, mining drills, generators, fabricators will cease to operate. Plants will also not grow. Fridges will remain active but use no power (so your food will be safe).
Once one of the base members logs back on, all items will function again.
Glass Wall Half (Vertical, Slanted):
This new piece should add some more variety to base designs.
Animated Models For Dropped Fish:
Tossing a fish from your inventory will now render the proper fish model flapping on the ground.
Christmas Tree:
It's now possible to craft a Christmas tree from the workbench.
The trees must be placed within your base build sphere as they have functioning lights that run off base power.
The option to craft these festive trees runs between Nov 1st and Dec 31st each year (based on your system clock).
Weapon/Clothing/Item Cosmetics:
I've added various cosmetics for weapons, clothing and items, and integrated with the Steam inventory service. These skins are purely cosmetic and do not affect any actual content or in-game stats. They are intended for players who wish to further support the game's development.
The skins can be found on the game's Item Store on Steam.
To apply a skin in-game, left click on the inventory item and the available skins will show as icons in the item's details box. They can be switched back and forth at any time.
Added In-Game Tip for Chopping Ice Holes:
It was not obvious to new players that this mechanic existed.
Cave Entrances Now Show On The Map:
I think this helps awareness for new players who may otherwise not seek to explore the depths of the lakes.
Other notable changes:
- Firearm handling sounds have been increased in volume and expanded. Now as the player breaks into a sprint and draws the weapon in/out, sounds will play accordingly. I think makes the weapons feel more weighty and immersive.
- Passwords will now save when joining servers, and be auto-populated when rejoining from the server list.
- Fixed incorrect curved window snapping location.
- Fixed scrollbars in all menus not scaling correctly to the length of the content within the scrollable window.
- The full alpha version will now show top left while in the menu (previous the decimals were omitted).
- If trying to join a server running a different version, the error message will now detail the exact version differences (rather than a generic error).
- Fixed bug where flashlight would continue to drain its battery if removed from a weapon while turned on.
- Passwords for previously joined servers will now save (so you don't have to re-enter each time you join). Unfortunately still not for co-op games.
- Fixed bug where movement controls could still remain active while in map view.
- Replaced unfocalized loading screen with simple loading icon instead.
- Fixed audio bug where fire/generator/cooking/etc sounds would not play in heavily populated worlds.
- Fixed bug where elevator switch would not call the elevator if the elevator was over 100 floors away.
- Fixed bug where hunter woodburners would not decay with the rest of their base after being destroyed by a BCU Cracker.
- Fixed animals sometimes playing their idle animations while walking for clients.
- Fixed mining drill progress meter not updating in real-time for clients.
- Fixed sandstone ore nodes not aligning correctly to the surface that are spawned on.
- Attempted to fix the random crash while accessing solar panels or wind turbines. I believe this is resolved, but haven't 100% confirmed yet.
- Fixed server name not showing in the server stats hud for clients.
- Fixed certain sounds not playing while in freecam mode (such as gunshots). Some sounds are still not working, but I will get to those in the future (freecam is lower priority as only affects admins).
- Fixed smoke from breaching charge not rendering for clients.
- Added many low poly LOD meshes for player models and clothing (performance benefit).
- Rugs, floodlights and switches have now been added to existing hunter bases.
- Fixed bug where rugs would protect the floor below from explosive damage.
- Fixed river sounds still playing after having frozen for the most southern river.
Discord invite: https://discord.gg/zyy4jQs
Twitter: @playSubsistence
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/playsubsistence/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkQZ7vkTiqetTC0_8umY2Pg
Steam Forums: https://steamcommunity.com/app/418030/discussions/
Hosting Your Own Server:
If you would like to host your own dedicated server, I would recommend Nitrado (as I work closely with their team to support the game). You are also free to host on your own hardware, and the server files are freely available on SteamCMD.
You can view a detailed guide to hosting here:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2201638184
Continued Translation Support Credits (in no particular order): Thank you so much for the support.
Spanish (David Lascasas)
Hungarian (Erb Ármin)
Portuguese BR (Thiago Schumacke)
German (Philipp J. Rackl (LPCaiser))
Italian (Marcello Brancaccio, Federico D. Ravagli)
French (Anthony Charrault)
Czech (Dílna U mnicha)
Dutch (Damster_NL)
Danish (Jesper Vestergaard Bæk)
Russian (FRAME)
Turkish (Soulkast, Çagla Gurbet)
Swedish (Mattias Gustavsson)
Norwegian (Christer Djuvik, Svein Tore Stegemoen)
Romanian (VaeVictis)
Estonian (Streamerize)
Polish (Robertus Lubin)
Ukrainian (RoW-Team)
Latvian (Martins Plucis)