1.39 (Party System | True Offline Mode | Sewers | Optimization | Fixes++)

Howdy! It’s been a while but we’ve got some great improvements for you all to check out! We’ve been hunkered down and focused on some much needed optimizations and feature requests! We’ve introduced new sewers in Blackrock, true offline mode, a really nice party system and some great fixes and optimization! Below is just a little showcase of a few of our fixes and features in 1.39. Be sure to checkout the changelog at the end of the blog for more details.

Unfortunately, a database increment will be required for this update. However, with version 1.0 just around the corner, this should be one of the last wipes we’ll have to deal with! We’re going to focus heavily on polishing things up for the best possible release coming out of early access!

Party System

Probably the 2nd most requested feature next to real single player. The party system allows players to chat, share XP, it has its own ranks, custom name tags along with friendly-fire blockers! Check out the commands below.

Party commands

Party Chat

True Offline Mode

Single player’s been your #1 request—and it’s finally here.

Full offline mode. Hop into your world-save settings, flip the Single Player toggle to ON (sets single player=true behind the scenes), connect via localhost, and play with zero internet.
Auto-pause. Step away from the keyboard: in single player the whole world freezes—zeds included. Jump back in whenever. (Online worlds still behave exactly as before.)

Heads-up: Steam achievements & stats won’t track while you’re offline; they need a live Steam connection. Also you will need to make at least one connection with internet enabled to authenticate with Steam but after that no more internet needed!

We hope this helps out those that want to play on the go or just don’t have great internet access. If you’re having any issues feel free to shoot a message over to us via Discord.

Quick Adding

A nice quality of life improvement added in 1.39 is quick adding. You can now hold add and remove (+ and -) buttons on all machines to quickly add and remove items! This small detail really helps smooth machine interactions over.

Quick add fire

Quick add fuel/vehicle

Optimizations and Performance

We’ve focused on a lot of optimization here. Sector lag is practically gone, the entire project just seems far more fluid. There have been major performance boosts to the server, world-loading, zombie hordes, startup, vegetation, barricades, DB, power-station load, sound dampening all kinds of really nice polish to push us towards a solid release.

Everyone should see a major improvement to performance across the board. With higher frame rates overall and significantly reduced world loading lag.

We’ve added support for AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution 3 (FSR 3), and it’s now the default anti-aliasing mode in the game.

FSR 3 boosts performance by rendering at a lower resolution and upscaling the image to maintain sharpness and detail. At higher settings, it also tends to look cleaner than traditional anti-aliasing, with smoother edges and fewer artifacts—without the same performance cost.
It works on all modern GPU types, not just AMD cards, so everyone can benefit regardless of hardware.

You can still switch to other options in the graphics settings, but FSR 3 offers a solid balance of visuals and performance by default.

Smoother Driving

Another massive improvement is to vehicles and driving mechanics. Players will instantly noticed how much smoother driving around the map feels due to our efforts with optimization. Check out the short video below and enjoy the smoothness! Keep in mind watching the video that JB is driving and his skills are pretty unmatched so don’t be too jealous ;)

Watch on YouTube

Along with the far smoother experience when it comes to driving, we have also added the player owner tag on vehicles, so that should make figuring out who’s car is who’s much easier!

Car owner now displayed on the vehicles hover UI

Vehicle fuel usage is also now dynamic, based on engine load. This will allow players to idle vehicles and not worry about running out of fuel so quickly. Obviously you will also use more fuel based on how fast you’re going so take it easy ova hea!

Fortification Snapping

We’ve added fortification placement snapping to free placed fortifications. Making walls and zombie blockers has never been easier, or neater!

Fortification snapping

Patch Notes - 1.39

Bug Fixes

• Fixed various location-based achievements that weren’t working correctly
• Fix for rare electrical system errors

Performance Optimisations

• Major performance optimisations to server
• Major improvements to the environment loading system to reduce lag spikes
• Reduced lag when many zombies are active
• Reduced startup lag spikes
• Vegetation performance improvements
• Fixed low FPS caused by barricades
• Reduced relevancy time for pickups to decrease non-essential overhead
• Fixes and optimisations to database processes to improve performance and concurrency
• Potential fix for lag caused by the power station when many players are online
• Fixed background lag caused by the attribute page when it’s not open
• Improved sound dampening performance

New Features (Core Gameplay)

• Added party grouping system with:
  - In-group chat
  - Rank hierarchy (Member, Moderator, Leader)
  - XP sharing among online group members
  - Group member map and name tag visibility
  - Friendly fire protection for grouped players
• Added dynamic fuel consumption based on engine load
• Added full offline play support
• Added full game pausing in offline/single player mode
• Added hold-down controls to quickly add/remove items from machines and adjust attribute points more efficiently
• Reviewed and adjusted attribute skill requirements for all harvest points in the game

World Improvements

• Police station exit door now includes an emergency-only exit (testable in Addersfield)
• Prison armory exit converted to an electric door with emergency-only exit to prevent re-entry exploits (testable)
• Harvest machines set to “destroy only” no longer display hover UI (testable on shipping containers)

Building & Crafting

• Introduced flat-placement mode for barricades
• Enabled snapping between barricades with automatic rotation
• Allowed steeper and more flexible placement angles for barricades

UI Enhancements

• Clarified the difference between player level and attribute skill in the UI
• Vehicle owner is now displayed in the hover UI for vehicles

STN+

• Added new log barricade
• Adjusted blueprint recipes and added new recipe for log barricade

Links

Discord: https://discord.gg/survivethenights

Changelog: https://changelog.survivethenights.net

X: https://x.com/STNgame

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/STNgame

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/a2zinteractive

Website: https://www.survivethenights.net

Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/a2zinteractive