Island 359 · published
Hi everyone! If you've been playing the beta for the last couple weeks there's not much new to you, but if not, LOTS of new stuff!
Most notably is that interacts/pickups are now on the GRIP button on Vive, and Hand Trigger on Touch. This makes the interacts more like Arizona Sunshine and feels a lot cleaner. Much less accidental shootings with this. You should get a mini-tutorial on first startup to show you how it works.
Quick overview of the rest of the update:
Progression System Update - upgrades now carry over into Mercenary mode. We will likely still tune the upgrades to scale a bit more linearly to the higher levels. Please let us know if your desired difficulty level seems appropriately challenging WHILE KEEPING IN MIND that the goal is to UPGRADE your character in arcade mode to make higher difficulty levels across both mission types easier.
Basically this means that attempting CRAZY mode with no upgrades is almost certain death. If you have upgrades for your guns and health however, it should feel about the same as normal mode.
Ammo Types - we've added a few new ammo types for the guns, as indicated by the floating ammo icon on the ammo pickups. If you have more than one ammo type in your inventory, you can HOLD the reload button for just under a second and some special ammo clips will appear. Slam the gun down onto the clip/ammo type you want and you will auto-reload and be equipped with that new ammo type.
-Incendiary Ammo: Does damage over time while burning the dinos
-Armor Piercing Ammo: Shots through Triceratops head like BUTTER, also does most general damage of any ammo type
-Explosive Ammo: Does extra damage by producing a small explosive charge on impact
I probably still need to add something that auto-equips your next available ammo type if you run out of ammo. Also had a few very minor bugs with this system reported but nothing game-breaking. As always report bugs to us.
DINO PUNCHING!!! We've wanted this in from our initial launch but FINALLY have a first pass version of it ready for you. A closed fist, or any object held in your hand will now at the very least, knock a dino back, and cause a small amount of damage. This is a great way to create some space in tense situations. Right now the damage volume is ONLY your fist, so you have to always hit with your fist, even if you have say a bow or AK in your hand - we'll get the details sorted out soon. You can kill compys with a couple hits... probably wouldn't recommend trying to punch a Trex to death.
AI Fixes: Some dinos were getting stuck mid-chase, that should be fixed now. Line of Sight for all dinos was also not set up properly - most notable with Trex who wouldnt see you at all. Fixed a few other issues there as well.
Guns shoot through little dinos: Depending on the power of the gun, you can now kill more than one compy at a time if you line your shot up properly. I might make the threshold for this less so you can shoot through Raptors as well later on.
Mildly Improved Physics HIt Reacts! - I'm not gonna sit here and tell you it's perfect yet, but punching/hitting dinos should feel better and you should see less pops in their hit react animations.
New Controls/Movement Options!
We had a lot of requests for HMD Oriented Trackpad Movement: You've got it! I renamed the movement modes with the prefix "Look" and "Point" to denote whether you aim with your head or controller respectively.
Also added free turning, which is kind of nauseating... use at your own risk. But we had requests for it so give it a shot if you think you'd like it. The only thing not quite right with it is that it only rotates from the center of your volume. So if you are not standing/sitting directly in the center of your volume, you will move a bit when rotating. We can look into ways to fix this eventually (sorry, best we could do for now)
Other Things:
-Foliage should be less blue-ish
-The TRex Arcade fight should be less impossible to beat now
-Triceratops is less of a pain in the ass to kill now, depending on your difficulty level. He gives a generous pause before attacking in easy mode, less pause on crazy
-Fixed some TRex foot sliding issues.
-Improved FX on drops for most objects. Melee items might still need some work.
-Started work on a new tutorial mission level.
-Almost have Stegosaurus ready to go.
-Lots of other stuff I'll add if I remember