The Alpha 51 update brings a large expansion to the southern region of the world map.
South of the existing maple forest now opens-up into new meadows, forests, rocky mountainous terrain, rivers, waterfalls and lakes.
A new mountain valley cuts down between the two southern peaks, offering plenty of new mid-altitude terrain (and cougar hunting grounds).
Down at lower altitude, a vast lake opens up stretches of beaches and deep water (now the largest body of water on the map).
A new silver birch forest-type runs along the edges of much of the southern beach-front. This forest is dense with foliage and high saturated colors.
Other new tree types, foliage and rock formations have been added, to give a distinct visual difference to the new zones.
Cave Access?
The largest of the new lakes currently doesn't give access to any underwater cave systems. This is planned for the future. So (for the time being) players setting up bases in the new region will need to hike to the northern lake to mine crystal from the existing cave system.
Eventually I plan to interconnect the cave systems, such that players can traverse the map underground.
All of the new areas and assets have been hooked-up to the seasonal system introduced in Alpha 50 (including several foliage types I missed in the previous update).
Hunter Pathing Update:
The new large rock formations introduced problems for hunters pathing across the map, often leading to them getting trapped or lost. I've expanded on their pathing logic to negotiate the new geometry (whilst keeping the load on the CPU to a minimum).
This was actually a sizeable overhaul. I've run a lot of simulations with the new pathing logic, however there will certainly be room for improvement, so I'll appreciate reports of any issues.
Seasonal Bird Migration:
As a visual indication of the changing seasons, flocks of migrating birds can now be seen flying north in the late fall, and south in the spring.
A video of this event can be seen here: https://youtu.be/eqPt1EP3OT4
Bear Maulings
Similar to cougar and moose; bears now have their own vicious mauling animation.
The aim of this is to increase immersion and add a greater sense of threat to bear encounters. Some players may not be keen on this type of animation, so I've added an option to disable it in the game options:
The animation can be seen here (WARNING: graphic content): https://youtu.be/ZBK5ml8GX8M
Configurable Year Duration
After seasons were introduced, many players reported that they'd like to control the duration of seasons. There is now an option when launching a profile to configure this. The days can be as low as a single day per month, or up to a full 365 days for a full year.
When browsing the server list, this setting can be viewed in the info popup when clicking on a server in the list.
Foliage Collision
Due to the scale of the map, I've avoided using map-wide collision for foliage (such as bushes), due to its heavy demand on the CPU. I'm testing a new system (in this update, only with new bushes) whereby collision dynamically toggles around a given radius of the local player at a minimal CPU cost.
This means bushes will audibly rustle when walking/running through them (as well being able to hear predators, prey and hunters moving through them nearby). I feel this adds more immersion. Once tested on this build, I'll expand to include many more foliage types.
Fixed Hunters Disengaging During Attacks:
There was a fairly common bug, whereby hunters would suddenly disengage during base attacks and start casually returning to their base. This is now fixed.
Fixed Predator AI Failing To Attack Base Items:
Occasionally predators would stop moving after attacking a base structure, leaving them easy to exploit. This has now been fixed.
Updated AI Pathing on Frozen Lakes:
Since seasons were introduced, hunters and animals had issues navigating paths across ice, sometimes resulting in them failing to move on the ice at all. This has now been addressed for all AI.
Increased Number Of Rogue Camps, Moose and Deer
With the additional map space, I've increased the number of roaming moose and deer, and added new logic for having them space out more evenly while roaming.
Fixed Bed Spawn Bug:
Previously, if a bed was obstructed by other base items, spawns would be consumed but players would be dropped elsewhere on the map. This is now fixed.
New Language Support: Simplified Chinese:
Thank you so much to Tony Lee for helping to provide this support.
Other Notable Changes:
- Fixed bug/exploit where burnt meat could be converted back to raw when adding to the fire.
- Fixed item dropdown menus sometimes getting stuck on screen.
- Fixed occasional crash when accessing certain base items (such as solar panels, turbines, radiator, etc).
- Reduced Depth of Field Blur at Distance. I've dialed back the aggressive depth of field blurring over distance. This results in an overall cleaner presentation and image quality.
- Fixed edge-case bug where fortresses would sometime not reconstruct elsewhere after being destroyed.
- Fixed bug where dropped kits would sometimes float in the air after being killed by a predator.
- Fixed item pickup messages not showing the item name for clients of co-op games.
- Disabled gamepad input by default, preventing the issue of new players turning in circles when first playing the game. This can be re-enabled by setting AllowJoystickInput=1 in UDKEngine.ini.
- Fixed diving gear exploit, where it was possible to refill the oxygen meter by switching out the diving gear while underwater while no O2 tank was present.
- Reduced tree shake while chopping wood.
- Fixed issue whereby 9mm stacks would be removed on death if stacked on top of freely issued rounds.
As the game world is now becoming substantial in size, I have plans to add more reasons and mechanics to venture out far and make large journeys. Please stay tuned for further updates.
I hope everyone has a great holiday period. Thank you for all the continued support. Please share your thoughts/suggestions/critique on the various social channels below (I do read it all).
Cheers,
ColdGames
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/
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 (LPCaiser)
Italian (Marcello Brancaccio, Federico D. Ravagli)
French (Anthony Charrault)
Czech (Dílna U mnicha)
Dutch (Damster_NL)
Russian (FRAME)
Turkish (Çagla Gurbet)
Swedish (Mattias Gustavsson)
Norwegian (Christer Djuvik, Svein Tore Stegemoen)
Romanian (VaeVictis)
Estonian (Streamerize)
Chinese (Tony Lee)