- Mushrooms are just part of a bigger "parent" organism that lives and grows below the actual soil, so picking up a single mushroom will not kill the "parent" organism. - Dead vegetation and dung increase the organism's energy, allowing it to produce more Mushrooms, therefore expand and reproduce. - Mushrooms won't take root on hostile terrains (like aridity), but their "parent" organism can endure extreme conditions for some time. - Mushroom terrain is more likely to retain water, when arid.
- The Player can harvest, cook and eat Mushrooms. - Most Mushrooms are poisonous; which color is or isn't edible is randomly decided at game start, so that the player must discover it in each new game. - Some erbivoures eat Mushrooms and can occasionally be visibly affected by the poison, the Player can discover which color is poisonous by simply watching the animal's reaction. - Player receives less damage from the poison if the Mushroom is cooked. - Added few new hints about mushroom poisoning (loading/menu/ingame hints).
Lock weather controls:
- Added the ability to "lock" weather sliders (rain, wind, humidity, temp), to prevent them from fluctuating due to the dynamic weather simulation.
Skill decay improved & added guide page:
- When a skill drops to the previous level, its progression starts from 50% (instead of 0%), since you need less practice to "relearn" the lost level. - Skill progression decay rate increased by ~10% (to partly balance the aforementioned change). - Added a new Guide page explaining the Skill System.
Important Survival mechanics improvements:
- Wind Exposure amplifies Wetness gained from rain/snow. - Wind Exposure, when covered by a Thatch, still allows Wetness to partly increase, depending on wall insulation (rain falling from the side). - Damage inflicted (both melee and ranged) is less dependent from weapon condition (at 0% weapon condition -> 50% dmg, up from 33%). - Body Weight is now shown without the addition of body hydration and stomach content (both in the screen info player and as +/- trend), but the actual weight used to calculate moving speed, jump etc is still influenced by those variables. Screen info tooltip updated to reflect the change (and now also shows the actual full weight as an addendum). - Muscle Soreness gain from walking and crafting/first aid reduced. - Muscle Soreness decay rate reduced and formula revisited to improve balance. - Body Muscle growth rate reduced by 33%. - Vitamins decay rate increased by 50%.
Important Ecology balance improvements:
- Seasonal rain chance tweaked to reduce droughts in summer. - Minimal rain session duration slightly increased. - Increased island water (and thus fertility) at new game creation during Autumn (+50%) and Summer (+20%), as especially Autumn was often too barren. - Pond formation chance from rain increased in arid terrain. - Minor rebalance to vegetation energy mechanics.
Misc relevant changes & improvements:
- [Graphics] Fern/Leaf/Flowers texture improved. - [Graphics] Added particles effect for gathering actions. - [Audio] Added a new music track playing in the in-game menus and guide (can still be disabled in the settings). - [Audio] Player footstep and jump landing sounds improved and added some more variations based on terrain. - [Interface] Mousehover text over animal, based on Zoology skill, can now be coloured to signal aggression level (red -> attacking you, orange -> aggressive, yellow -> passive, green -> tamed). - [Interface] Eating action tooltips for most foods revisited to take into account also vitamins. - [Controls] Holding +/- (or Page Up/Down) keys will smoothly zoom in/out, instead of instantly once pressed. - [AI] Triceratops and Ankylosaur reaction to player bumping into them improved, they will often just be spooked (also females and youngs which previously had no reaction), while males will still occasionally attack. -[AI] Adult herbivores will now also go after fruit when hungry, if it's in front of them (even when mouse-dragged by the player).
Relevant fixes:
-[Survival] Fixed fish/meat being chased by animals also when inside a backpack, and triggering the Taming event (they can still eat from a backpack if they've seen food inside it). -[Survival] Fixed equipped items occasionally showing on top of the character head, after loading a save. -[Survival] Fixed Gathering action continuing forever if started while the plant/tree was disappearing. - Fixed young T-Rex occasionally bumping into unrelated dormient adults when reaching a sleeping spot, until it passes out or the adult wakes up. - Fixed male Triceratops still being 100% Rutting after mating in spring (but no longer displaying the red crest). - Fixed food stolen/eaten by animals directly from a backpak not becoming visible.
These are only the most relevant changes, as always there are tons of other in this update, check the full changelog for the complete list!
Dan
Update v0.89.0 released!
This update IS compatible with savegames from previous v0.88.0+!
To plant a tree, right click on a fruit (Berry, Cone or Coconut), and select "Plant".
The action tooltip suggests which conditions are needed for the specific fruit to take root.
The planting action is tied to your Digging skill, the higher the skill, the faster the action.
After being planted, the tree will take root after 1 day (if conditions allow it).
- Added visual wound system for the player:
Wounds will only appear when the character receives a hit causing the Bleeding effect (and the size scales with the Bleeding % received).
If the hit appears on an existing wound, it becomes bigger instead of creating a new one on top/close to it.
When the player performs First Aid or the Bleeding reduces/stops, the visible wounds associated to it reduce/heal too.
The effect is disabled if the "Blood Decals" setting is turned off.
- Breath and Stamina mechanics improved and rebalanced:
While swimming, reaching 0 Breath causes Health loss by drowning (-5/sec).
While swimming, character body becomes visibly submerged the more he/she loses Breath.
Breath consumption from swimming and static actions (like crafting, butchering etc) rebalanced.
Breath recovery speed now only scales with maximum Breath, instead of multiple variables (that was redundant and not perfectly balanced, since max Breath itself also depends on those variables).
Maximum Breath gained from Endurance skill increased from +50% to +75%.
Maximum Stamina calculation reworked, from 66 min - 133 max, to 75 min - 125 max (still based on Metabolism and Endurance skill).
Stamina decay over time slightly reduced in some circumstances.
Stamina recovery while sleeping now fully scales with max Stamina, instead of scaling with it only by 50% (this means that characters with low maximum Stamina do not recover it faster than those with high max Stamina).
The player will no longer receive "i'm tired!" warnings (including screen blinking/yawn sound) if the character is too agitated to actually fall asleep.
- Muscle Soreness and body mechanics improved and rebalanced:
Muscle Soreness gain from ALL actions halved, and periodic decay halved too, resulting in a less volatile Muscle Soreness (and decay now triggers every 1 sec, instead of 10).
Muscle Soreness decay rate from good nutrition (especially if highly proteic) increased.
Proteins in surplus (aka if > than Calories), when converted into Calories, produce only 5 kcal per 1 Protein, instead of 25 kcal (that was excessive!).
Calories/Proteins/Water assimilation rate slightly increased and balance improved.
Body Fat/Muscle gain/loss calculations substantially improved for both realism and balance.
Skin Tone decay rate doubled.
- Wetness system rebalanced:
Sweating rate now scales with hydration (from 50% to 150% of the old value, depending on hydration).
Sweating alone now can only increase body Wetness up to 66% max.
Body temperature reduction from Wetness increased (taking a bath is now much better for reducing the heat).
Wetness evaporation rate tweaked to be much slower in some circumstances, so that taking a bath in summer for reducing the heat is definitely viable, as Wetness does no longer decrease too fast.
Wetness increase rate from rain/snow rebalanced (should be lower in most circumstances).
Drinking action now increase Wetness by a tiny bit.
- Fishing action improved:
Fishing chance totally reworked to be more coherent with the Fishing skill and Fish population thereby, and also take into account the Spear condition.
When fishing, while waiting for a fish, the character now has a slight increase in Muscle Soreness and effort (thus minor energy and stamina consumption).
Cleaning Fish action can now reduce or improve the condition of the Fish, based on the Butchering skill.
Guide: added a new page explaining Fishing.
- Skill progression decay partially reworked:
Skill progression decay is now constant until Stamina drops to 50% or less, then it's amplified, reaching the maximum multiplier (x2) at 0 Stamina; previously it always fully scaled with Stamina.
Skill progression now also decays during sleep.
Skill progression decay rate rebalanced (and, as mentioned in the interface section, is now visible in the character info screen).
Creating a Healing Mush does no longer increase the First Aid skill, but it still requires it.
Total Skill text (in character creation/info screen) now also shows skill decay rate (color changed to light blue), and added a mouse hover text for additional info.
- Added a new craftable weapon, Sword:
The Sword requires Crafting skill lv 5+, and 1 Wood + 1 Stick to be crafted.
The Sword deals relatively low damage compared to other weapons, but it's faster (and also deals bleeding).
- Vegetation placement and balance improved:
Vegetation birth conditions improved to allow plants (both ferns and trees) to take root closer to each other, forming denser forests.
Improvements to vegetation mechanics and interaction with herbivores.
- Relevant other improvements and fixes:
-[Interface] Added floating damage text (shown in yellow) dealt to ANIMALS from non-player sources (animal fights, fire, bleeding, etc); in Survival, the chance of it showing scales with the Zoology skill (reaching 100% chance at 50+ Zoology). -[Survival] Stumbling lock time reduced from 1.25 sec to 1.0 sec, and made some minor improvements. -[Survival] Chance of causing Bleeding to animals when attacking is now DIRECTLY amplified by the related skill (either Melee or Ranged), instead of indirectly. -[Survival] When hitting an obstacle (boulder, wall, mountain) with a melee attack, the weapon/punch will actually impact with it, either damaging the weapon or the player (if bare-handed). -[Weather] Temperature calculation partly reworked to produce more realistic day-night and seasonal temp fluctuation. -[Map] Fish reproduction formula reworked: they now reproduce with mild temperature, therefore they're more likely to spawn in Spring or Autumn. -[Fix][Survival] Fixed saves still affected by the pre-0.88.5 negative carcass butchering progress bug (the actual bug cause was already fixed in v0.88.5). -[Fix][Survival] Fixed "magical" Arrow becoming stuck in the air when putting it in a Quiver/Backpack (doesn't fix arrows in affected save, just remove them from the quiver and that should fix it). -[Fix][Survival] Fixed a bunch of bugs regarding items in Backpack. -[Fix] Fixed several minor issues with the game interface. -[Fix] Some minor fixes here and there.
These are only the most relevant changes, as always there are tons of other in this update, check the full changelog for the complete list!
Dan
Update v0.88.5 (changelog)
This update IS compatible with savegames from previous v0.88.0+!
SYSTEM:
- Minimum framerate (below which the game starts to go in slow-motion, to prevent collision glitches and preserve playability) now scales with graphics quality setting (Low=10, Med=20 and High=30).
GRAPHICS:
- Added a new ripple effect to water reflections, to make them less static and give a better sense of water movement (disabled at "Low" Graphics Quality setting). - Splash effect at footstep (both Player & animals) from rain is now chance based (from 0% below 25 rain, to 100% above 75 rain), instead of directly triggering at 50+ rain. - Splash particle effects are slightly more visible. - Screen sharpen effect tweaked. - Blood effect on wounded animals improved. - [Survival] Water splash on ponds from T-Rex footsteps enhanced, and enabled only on "High" Graphics Quality setting. - [Survival] Minor tweaks to several character action animations.
AUDIO:
- Rain sound volume increases more gradually from rain intensity (especially at the initial stages of rain). - [Survival] T-Rex footsteps now trigger for ALL T-Rexes nearby, not just the nearest one! - [Survival] T-Rex footsteps sound volume, pitch and screen shake effect tweaked to be more consistant with the animal size. - [Survival] Added a brief alert sound when trying to create a character with negative creation points. - [Survival] If playing as female, Wilhelm scream sounds feminine. - [Survival] Snoring volume slightly reduced.
INTERFACE:
- [Survival] Right mouse click selection buttons on Tree and Carcass now directly show the quantity of resources gatherable/harvestable (branch, fruits, meat etc), also, unselectable actions for Tree are now shown in grey, instead of being always clickable and triggering a warning hint (or being hidden), and added a tooltip explaining why the action is not accessible.
- [Survival] When chance to gather a fruit is very low, a warning text next to the button notifies it. - [Survival] Aim reticule during Aim Mode is now only visible if a ranged weapon is equipped. - [Survival] Removed Carcass mousehover inspect info showing Meat/Pelt/Tendon (because of the aforementioned change). - [Survival] Species for Carcass, Meat and Egg is now shown in mousehover inspect info, instead of next to the item name. - [Survival] Added more info beneath the Bleeding icon. - [Survival] The game now asks for confirmation before eating a spoiled/raw foods (that would cause damage). - [Survival] Muscle Soreness icon and mousehover text have more stages, to reflect a change (listed in the Survival section), and improved tooltip with better info about the impact on muscle growth/loss. - [Survival] Added a new loading hint about Muscle Soreness. - [Survival] Added a new loading hint suggesting that T-Rex are more likely to see you as a prey, if you sprint. - [Survival] Thatch tooltip is more clear about it being supported. - [Survival] Action warning text flashes a bit to be more obvious. - [God] In the fertility list, "zones" renamed to "soil". - [Survival] Damage text for damage inflicted is now shown in yellow, and with the actual negative value. - Added a loading hint about year and day duration. - Added SurvivalVis to game credits (provided useful feedback, check him on YouTube!). - Minor improvements to loading hints.
SETTINGS:
- Added an option to disable the sleeping snoring sound in Survival mode.
CONTROLS:
- [Survival] Attack direction assist is noly enabled with "Control Mode" set to "Keyboard". - [Survival] Attack direction assist is much more precise and less glitchy.
SURVIVAL:
- When failing a fishing attempt, there is a chance (11% to 33% depending on actual fish pop) fish population decrease in that specific spot (as you might scare the fishes by swinging the spear), and added a hint showing the fish population left. - Increased (by ~33%) the positive impact of Fishing skill to fishing attempt success chance. - It is now possible to actually drink sea water, but with minimal hydration gain and substantial damage (the game asks for confirmation before proceeding). - Base damage from low temperature increased by 20%, but it now scales with Calories, so with high calories it can be up to 50% lower. - Base damage from high temperature increased by 20%, but it now scales with Hydration, so with high hydration it can be up to 50% lower. - Bleeding % now reduces healing speed (60% bleeding reduces healing to 40% its normal speed). - Chance of player inflicting bleeding to animals increased for some weapons. - Falling damage after being gripped by a T-Rex is now increased by Body Weight, but is reduced Athletics skill. - Muscle Soreness, when over 25%, now starts to increase the delay of attack and jump actions. - Cool (at high ambient temp) from regular shelter and cave reduced (from shelter HALVED, from cave reduced by 33%), as survival in hot summer became too easy after the previous update. - T-Rex footsteps have a much higher chance to wake up the Player, based on their intensity, and insulation from shelter reduces it by 50% max, instead of 66%. - Chance floating animal action text shows up now reaches 100% at 50+ Zoology, not 100. - Moving speed reduction from rain is now chance based at footstep (from 0% below 25 rain, to 100% above 75 rain), instead of always triggering at 50+ rain. - It is now possible to start mouse-dragging an item that is below an empty/green Equip Slot (so you won't need to disable->move->re-enable Equip Mode to pick it). - Triggering an attack with Attack Stance disabled will enable Attack Stance, if the click or key press is brief, instead of automatically attack (to prevent accidentally attacking when miss-clicking). Holding the button will also trigger the attack as before. - Screen shake effect when hit by an animal now scales with the animal size, instead of being fixed. - Melee attack timing and precision improved (especially for the Spear). - Door opening speed now partly depends on player Strength. - Pushback inflicted to animal with attacks now scales better with animal size.
ANIMALS:
- [Survival] When hunting from hunger, T-Rex and Troodon player detection distance now scales with their hunger (when less hungry they won't track the player from too far away). - [Survival] When hunting from hunger, T-Rex player detection chance is now more reliant on player moving speed (if you stay still or sneak he might just ignore you). - [Survival] Troodons are much more likely to be scared and flee when the players kills one of their mates (the chance now also depends by the age of the victim: if you kill a helpless newborn they might actually get even angrier and utterly murder you). - Damage and bleeding inflicted by animals to other animals and player rebalanced and unified (uses a single algoritm that takes into account many variables). - Troodons called in a hunt by a mate will respond also when sleeping or doing other actions, depending on their Stamina and Energy. - Animals (aside T-Rex) are slightly faster, especially Troodon. - Animals damage received from Bleeding doubled (it was extremely low!). - Males of all species have 50% chance of failing to impregnate the female after mating, leading to potential repeated mating sessions :P. - T-Rex male and female have more chances to fight instead of mating, if overpopulated. - Number of eggs layed does no longer scale with the mother's energy. - Animal migration threshold increased (they decide to migrate after a longer time spent searching for what they needed). - Animal turning speed tweaked to be slightly more steady and somewhat faster. - Ankylosaur body is a bit broader, thus their carcass has slightly more meat. - Changed the calculation of the Health damage from starvation/dehydration, taking into account the potential maximum health; this also fixes newborn (especially herbivors) dying too early from starvation/dehydration. - Adult Ankylosaur will never eat ferns, even if starving (only babies do). - Triceratops will never eat young trees, even if starving (not even adults), this (along with the previous change) increases their impact on the vegetation ecology. - Herbivours will only eat young Taxus trees hungry enough (<75%) - Herbivours will no longer see young trees from very far away. - Herbivours no longer pick their plant food based on plant population (this was implemented as a way to help the ecology balance, but it's redundant now, since the system is much more balanced without needing artificious mechanics). - Tweaks to quantity of vegetation/meat consumed by animals when eating from a plant/carcass. - Tweaks to animal hybernation conditions from temperature. - Carcasses require 20% longer to freeze in the cold. - Animals now periodically update their Z order, so no smaller animals comes atop of bigger ones. - Animal roaming pattern and speed improved.
VEGETATION:
- [Survival] It's no longer possible to completely destroy Trees by gathering all the Leaves/Branches/Resin, there is an energy threshold below which the player can't harvest. - Trees under 50% energy will get heavy damage from strong wind, which can now fall them down (only the stump is shown, will implement actual trunk in a future update). - Seeds dropped by fruits will only take root if in their ideal temperature range (previously this applied only to seeds directly dropped by the plant). - Seeds "stored" in aridity soil now slowly decay over the years. - Several tweaks to vegetation energy mechanics, to improve long term balance.
OBJECTS:
- [Survival] Added the "Eat" action button to Pine Cone, although disabled and suggesting to find Palm or Taxus tree for edible fruits (placeholder action for future additions).
WEATHER & SEASONS:
- Drought system reworked: it previously decided in advance if there was a Drought, reducing chances of rain during it; now it naturally emerges from the actual seasonal rain chance. Also, the Drought text now shows 3 severity stages (up from 2) and the days since the last rain. - Seasonal rain chance rebalanced.
TERRAIN & MAP:
- Several tweaks to soil energy mechanics, to improve seasonal changes of terrain.
WATER:
- Tweaks to pond water evaporation rates.
OPTIMIZATION:
- Huge optimizations to vegetation and ponds off-screen rendering, improving performance especially on bigger maps!
FIXES:
- [Survival] Fixed a glitch that twisted the character's breast/belly at a different angle compared to the body (also fixes affected saves). - [Survival] Fixed Butchering action not progressing, but giving negative progress (was happening in cold temperature). - [Survival] Fixed action "Empty Quiver" removing the arrows, but keeping the Quiver "full" and freezing the player when trying to empty it again (also fixes affected saves). - [Survival] Fixed flickering mousehover text while mouse-dragging a food that's being cooked. - [Survival] Fixed critical damage text effect and sound never showing. - [Survival] Fixed "creepy" music also playing (at lower volume) while character is sleeping. - [Survival] Fixed player action menu being acessible from the "G" key also while attacking or in attack delay. - [Survival] Fixed Spear with Fish attached sometimes not dropping it on attack animation. - [Survival] Fixed skill texts in the character info screen not showing the full text if the skill is lvl 100 @ -100% advancement. - [Survival] Fixed pulled carcass rotating also during game pause. - [Survival] Fixed a rare instance when loading a save while the character was eating resulted in the character stuck forever (also fixes affected saves). - [Survival] Fixed a rare instance when triggering a ranged attack caused the player to be permanently unable to do any action outside moving and dragging items (also fixes affected saves). - [Survival] Fixed Aim Mode sometimes not stopping after game pause, although not holding down the key/RMB. - [Survival] Fixed character's footprints being enabled also with Graphics Quality set to "Low", when only supposed to be with "Medium"+. - Fixed tree shadows being enabled (but not getting updated in intensity) with Graphics Quality set to "Medium", when only supposed to be with "High". - Fixed water wave effect being re-enabled with Graphics Quality set to "Medium" after the game takes a snapshot, when only supposed to be with "High". - Fixed Fruit spawning new trees nearby when eaten by player or animals (was not intended). - Fixed young Ferns often growing way faster than intended. - Fixed tree fire occasinally not being on top of the tree canopy. - Fixed a very rare bug that caused a tree to spawn 2 canopies, instead of 1. - Fixed Carcass labeled as "freezing" while ambient temp is warm (for few seconds after being created). - [Workaround] Migrating animals, if stuck in front of a mountain, will give up the migration and move away, instead of stubbornly hit the mountain (this is just a workaround, I'll implement a proper fix in a future update). - Fixed newborn dying too early from starvation/dehydration. - Fixed inspected animal showing "Reaching Meat" when it's actually Fish. - Fixed inspected baby T-Rex showing "Chasing a male" when it's following the mother. - Fixed Windows showing a red square instead of the game icon on some systems. - Fixed Thatch not showing mouse hover text color (representing its condition). - Fixed the game notifying "save updated" at game loaded even with no actual update. - Fixed Guide unpausing the game if accessed from the exit menu. - Minor fixes I forgot to write.
DEV & DEBUG TOOLS:
- Game info (accessed with F3) now show some more details about blood decals.
Hotfix v0.88.2 released!
This update IS compatible with savegames from previous v0.88.0+!
SYSTEM:
- Minimum framerate raised to 20 (from 5), below which the game starts to go in slow motion (to prevent collision glitches and preserve playability).
GRAPHICS:
- [Survival] Minor improvements to movement animations.
AUDIO:
- Removed timescale-dependency for audio (that's what caused the infamous memory leak!).
INTERFACE:
- [Survival] Sprint icon is visible just for the first half second of sprinting, then fades away.
SURVIVAL:
- Maximum jump height reachable with stats/athletics increased, as well as reduced the minimum one (sorry fatty character's players :p). - Improved footstep logic (decides better when/how to trigger footstep splash effects, sounds and footprints). - Vitamins decay rate reduced by 33%.
VEGETATION:
- Palm energy gain from terrain reduced (to nerf their population on the long run).
STRUCTURES:
- [Survival] A well insulated shelter now offers some cool, if the ambient temp is torrid (the effect is doubled in a cave, as it's much cooler). - [Survival] Cave now offers less protection from cold ambient temp (the previous change made it overpowered and potentially preferrable over a proper built shelter).
TERRAIN & MAP:
- At island generation, initial dry pond beds are now comparatively smaller than ones with actual water.
FIXES:
- Fixed a nasty lag occurring after few minutes of game time on some systems (caused by a memory leak). - Fixed dry pond beds not shrinking in some rare circumstances (like when no actual pond was on the map). - [Survival] Fixed Wood and Stone Wall tooltips having the Building skill requirement swapped (Wood is 5+, Stone is 10+). - [Survival] Fixed "Get Fruit" hint occasionally suggesting that Pine/Taxus produce fruit in mild temperature, when temp is actually mild.
Memory leak & next hotfix
UPDATE: MAYBE I'VE FIXED THE ISSUE WHILE PRESERVING SAVE COMPATILITY, THE HOTFIX IS COMING ON 14th NOVEMBER, AFTER FURTHER TESTING.
Hello survivors! I have bad and a good news for ya...
The last hotfix (v0.88.1) fixed the major bugs, some of which were introduced in the 0.88 update.
There is however an issue with performance: some players report performance decresed after v0.88, I've tested myself and indeed seems there is some sort of memory leak appearing after few minutes of playtime.
The good new is I can fix it! The bad one is that in order to fix it, next update will break save compatibility once again...
I'm trying my best to workaround the issue preserving backsave compatibility, but can't guarantee anything.
Just wanted to let you know, I'll release the fix probably later tonight if everything goes right, so expect your saves to get earsed as soon as you update (maybe no longer the case, read above).
Hotfix v0.88.1 released!
This update IS compatible with savegames from previous v0.88.0!
GRAPHICS:
- [Survival] Several improvements to character animations. - Stone/Wood Wall sprites blend better together. - Blood terrain decals size tweaked, and if on water, spawns a red splash effect.
AUDIO:
- [Survival] Added variation to the jump sound (based on actual breath level). - [Survival] Added more subtle variation to footstep sound (based on terrain). - Many sounds (like landing, swinging) change volume/pitch based on player/animal weight. - Pond sound volume is more subtle if the pond is small. - More minor audio improvements.
STRUCTURES:
- [Survival] While building, the game now shows the actual translucent sprite of the structure that is being built. - [Survival] Structures placement improved (and walls can now be built on top of others). - [Survival] Wood Door is highlighted also while opened/closed by the player.
FIXES:
- [Survival] Fixed baby T-Rex/Troodon being often untamable, while still showing the "Animal tamed!" hint (this bug haunted me for years!). - [Survival] Fixed the game not saving before quitting in Rogue-lite difficulty, and improved the save system (another long standing bug, now gone!). - [Survival] Fixed a bunch of nasty bugs related to character movement/animation while performing actions. - [From v0.88.0] [Survival] Fixed Fish disappearing as soon as it is caught. - [From v0.88.0] [Survival] Fixed butchering carcass for Pelt or Tendon always resuming from ~99% progress, after succesfully completing the action a first time with that carcass. - [From v0.88.0] [Survival] Fixed Wood Door not being built in the exact choosen spot. - [From v0.88.0] [Survival] Fixed carving Stone action producing, along with the intended Sharpstone, 2 small stones. - [From v0.88.0] [AI] Fixed a small calculation error that forced youngster T-Rex to attack any animal approaching a carcass he was guarding, even if much stronger than him. - [From v0.88.0] [Audio] Fixed a subtle intermittent noise playing during game pause (also during exit menu, character screen etc).
Update v0.88.0 - Gender selection & tons of stuff!
This update is NOT compatible with old savegames!
Savegames are automatically deleted due to the different way the new version handles some core mechanics. If you have a current game you don't want to lose, don't update now, but finish your game first.
- Added Gender selection when creating a new character:
Female can be finally selected at character creation screen, with gameplay, visual and audio differences.
Female is physically weaker than male (has less Strength/Health from Body Muscle, and slightly overall, meaning that in a muscle-less character the gender difference is subtle, but with high muscles it is evident).
Female consumes less calories and is comparably lighter than male.
Female has skills advancement decay speed HALVED, making her much better at retaining/increasing proficiencies.
Added "Randomize" button in character creation, allowing to fully randomize the character (both appearence and proficiencies).
- Added the ability to introduce dinosaurs on the island:
Added a new button in the God panel: "Add Animal".
Pressing "Add Animal" allows to select species and gender of the animal, and release it with LMB (left mouse button).
God tutorial updated to cover the new feature.
- Added birds flying off trees:
Birds fly when the player or an animal passes by, as well as when the tree catches fire, is struck by lightning or is chopped down.
Birds population is simulated via game logic, not directly (like for other animals), and depends on many variables (like number of trees, their age, energy etc).
Birds, for now, cannot interact with game world (just like pterosaurs), but they enrich the atmosphere and give a hint about the ecosystem health.
- Mating system and "Alpha" mechanics expanded:
Not all species now mate in the same season: Triceratops and T-Rex in late winter, Ankylosaurs and Troodons in spring.
Most animals will now mate a single time during the mating season (but this varies depending on the species, gender and Alpha rank).
Egg incubation time reduced to 6 ingame days (instead of 10).
Egg number produced by each species rebalanced.
Changed how Triceratops choose their alpha male, which is based now on who's the most successfull in fights (expect to see much more violent fight during the mating season).
Only the Alpha Triceratops can mate now.
Alpha male/female has slightly more HP.
- Animal combat improved:
Animals are now able to fight each other in many more occasions, since combat events are now "unified" in the code!
Added plenty of animal reactions (both offensive and defensive) to make use of the aforementioned change (more to come).
Animals will pick their targed based on many variables (just like when hunting) like target armor, population and action.
Animals are more reactive to possible threats or opportunities (more to come).
Damage dealt and received tweaked for balance.
This is still a WIP, expect more improvements to animal combat AI and potential situations!
- Added buildable Wood Wall:
Wood Wall requires Building skill lvl 5, as well as 5 Wood and 10 Resin.
Wood Wall offers the same insulation of Stone Wall, but, just like Wood Door, degrades from humidity and weather, and receives more damage from Animals.
Stone Wall now requires 5 Dung to be built, instead of 5 Resin.
- Structure repairing improved:
Structures are repairable also beyond 50% condition (in that case the action is called "Reinforce") depending on Building skill (up to 90% condition).
The speed of the repair/reinforce action is also influenced by the structure damage level: more damage requires more time to fix up.
The amount of condition increased after the repair/reinforce action is now fixed (and still scales with the quality of the components used, and the starting structure condition).
- Island size increased and map generation improved:
Island size increased by ~20%, also, Landmass value in new game screen now ranges from 10% to 100% (instead of 50-150%).
Island size and jagging are more coherent with the settings choosen in the new game screen.
Mountains, ponds, terrains and vegetation initial placement at island generation improved.
Cave generation improved to fix potential collision issues.
Important fixes and more improvements:
- [Interface] Mouse hover texts are now shown also in God Mode (and also when the game is paused). - [Survival] Skill decay is now ALWAYS enabled (regardless of difficulty), but base decay speed reduced (in addition to the aforementioned 50% reduction for Female). - [Survival] Removed the character "angle lock" after performing an attack (introduced in the previous v0.85.0 update). This feature was annoying and served a purpose which is no longer necessary after the Stumbling changes mentioned below. - [Survival] Stumble conditions changed: instead of stumbling only when moving backwards after jumping/attacking, it always happens in those two circumstances (also when moving forward), and chances are higher when moving backwards/sprinting. - [Survival] Chance to stumble reduced globally to 50% (and is now even lower in Normal difficulty). - [Survival] Micronutrients renamed to Vitamins, specifically B, C and D (the 3 most important). - [Survival] Butchering actions (get Meat/Pelt/Tendon) can be resumed if interrupted, instead of always starting from 0% (if the carcass is eaten by an animal, the advancement shrinks). - [Audio] All game sounds are now timescale-dependent, meaning if the game runs in slow motion (like during Equip Mode), you hear sounds in slow motion (and vice-versa). If timescale is too fast (10x or more) sounds are silenced. - [Audio] Added a new ambience sounds and improved some existing ones. - [AI] Animals will now "migrate" to a different zone of the island when looking for a particular thing, they used to just wander randomly, now they try to evaluate which zone of the island may offer what they're in need for. - [Objects] Objects decay rate rebalanced and reduced globally by ~25% (some like player tools and clothes by over 50%!). - [Objects] Some items (like Wood/Branch) no longer decay if dry and sheltered from the weather. - [Objects] When a BIG Stone is destroyed, it now ALWAYS produces 2 SMALL ones with 50% condition (unless it is broken on purpose by the player, then the condition depends on the original Stone). - [Tutorial] General minor Tutorial improvements. - [Fix] MANY FIXES - Check the full changelog below...
These are only the most relevant changes, as always there are tons of other in this update, check the full changelog for the complete list!
Dan
Development update!
Hello there! (read it with Obi-Wan's voice, if you recall this scene :p)
First and foremost, I want to thank everyone who played and plays DinoSystem and is giving me feedback and bug reports. I'm astonished by the good reviews the game is getting, I never thought a substantial number of players would appreciate the game, which started as a passion project and is very niche in gameplay and art style.
I also need to apologize for the lack of news and updates in the last 10 months, I've never stopped working on DinoSystem during this time, I've just progressed extremely slowly, due to my full-time job, and never felt confident enough to release the work done as an actual update, at least so far.
I'm here to announce I've partially quit that job (turning it into a part-time one), in order to be completely absorbed by DS development once again.
And about the next update, it is nearly ready: expect it to be released sometime between 31 October to 7th November!
Here's a quick summary of what v0.88 brings:
- Gender selection, with actual gameplay differences: playing as female has its pros and cons
- Deep improvements to animal AI, with more interactions between species and co-specifics
- Ability to introduce animals in God Mode
- Wooden walls buildable in Survival Mode
- Bigger island and improved island generation
- Birds flocks (visual effect, but with actual simulated mechanics)
- Tons, tons of smaller improvements, balance tweaks and bug fixes
Expect a full (and still WIP) changelog to be released few days before the update.
See you soon!
Daniel
Update v0.85.0 - Character Presets, Controls tweaks, AI expansion, many improvements!
This update IS compatible with savegames from previous v0.80.0+!
But it's still advised to start a new game, as some changes could potentially cause glitches.
--- NOTE: this announcement comes few days late, as the update was released on December 26th ---
"Direction" option renamed to "Control Mode" and expanded:
- "Absolute" renamed to "Keyboard", which controls the character moving direction with the keyboard input (as before), but now it applies ALSO to the character angle. KEYBOARD is now the default option when the game is first started.
- "Relative" renamed to "Mouse", and works the same as before.
- Added a new option called "Mixed", which is like "Keyboard", but retains the ability to turn the character with the mouse (same as "Absolute" before this update).
- When triggering a melee attack from the Keyboard, the character will automatically turn towards a close-range frontal target (check the survival section for more info about it).
- Removed the possibility to bind a key for changing the Control Mode (default was T), as it was unnecessary and could be pressed by mistake, confusing new players.
Added "Preset" character builds in the Character Creation Screen:
- Presets are pre-defined starting character builds.
- Presets are a good starting point to build your character pursuing a specific playstyle.
- There are five presets: Default, Survivor, Hunter, Runner and Tanker, each with its pros and cons, and more will probably be added in future updates.
Added Player melee assist and attack action improved:
- When triggering a melee attack from the Keyboard, the character will automatically turn towards a close-range frontal target (animal or tree) before performing the attack. If attacking from LMB (left mouse) or in Ranged, the attack direction is still fully mouse controlled.
- When hitting a target (melee) or when firing a projectile (ranged), the character cannot turn for the duration of the attack delay (red attack bar), preventing him/her from exploiting the turning mechanics and limit/avoid stumbling.
- Attack precision and collision detection vastly improved.
- Wind impact on projectile trajectory reduced and rebalanced to have a minimum wind power threshold.
- It is now possible to hit trees with all weapons (even with the punch!) dealing a small damage to the trunk and potentially chopping down small trees, but doing that without a cutting weapon triggers a hint suggesting to use an Axe/Sharpstone instead.
Animal ecology rebalanced:
- Animal energy/water/stamina expenses rebalanced.
- Number of eggs layed per species rebalanced, and it no longer scales with species population.
- Fighting/hunting events outcome rebalanced and made minor tweaks.
- Energy/water gained from food rebalanced, and eating action improved.
- Triceratops and Ankylosaurs feeding preferenced tweaked to let them occupy slightly differenct ecological niches.
- Improved how the game evaluates how well every species is doing, taking into account more parameters.
- Removed some artificial balance enforcing mechanics, as they're no longer necessary.
- Tweaks to the animals aging system.
- Some rebalancing to animals generation at game start.
Animal AI improved and expanded:
- Predators are now much better at evaluating which animals they should hunt, taking into account more parameters and with less restrictions (previously, they only hunter members of the more numerous species).
- T-Rex can now grip and carry away a small carcass, if they see another T-Rex nearby, in order to feast on it alone.
- Male Troodon will now stay close to his partner after mating, and help her protect the nest.
- Improved how mothers guard their nest.
Added Alpha specimen system:
- Triceratops and Troodons now have Alpha male/female, which can lead the pack and take some decisions.
- The Alpha specimen is usually the strongest and/or oldest member of the pack.
- Triceratops have harsh confrontations to decide who'll become the Alpha male.
- The Alpha male/female has slightly more vivid colors.
Added Animal hibernation system:
- Animals hibernate in three occasions: when they cannot find/water food and are starving/dehydrated, when their species is close to extinction and they can't find a fertile mate, and during a particularly cold winter (only Troodons).
- While hibernating, the ZZZ sleeping icon is red.
- While hibernating, Stamina is always 0 and the metabolic functions are slowed down to 1/5, allowing the animal to endure starvation, hydration or lack of fertile mates.
- While hibernating, the animal can still be awakened by attacks or other events (receiving a Stamina boost).
- If starving/dehydrated during hibernation, the animal has a chance to wake up for some time (receiving a Stamina boost), in order to find what it needs.
Added animal action pop-up text:
- When performing certain actions, animals now show a pop-up text next to their head with the action name.
- The actions shows are: fleeing, eating/drinking, falling asleep, waking up, mating, laying eggs, winning/losing a fight, and few others.
- In Survival mode, the action text is shows with a chance equal to the character Zoology skill.
- In God mode, the action text is always shown.
Other addition and fixes worth mentioning:
- [Survival] Added dynamic mist effect, which is only visible in Survival mode, but depends on actual weather variables.
- Clouds effect improved and made more vivid overall (plus more weather visual improvements).
- Major optimizations to clouds, cloud reflections and cloud shadows logic.
- Asteroid chance decreased by 15% for "Likely", and by 100% for "Unlikely" (which is now REALLY unlikely!).
- [Survival] Items are now highlighted when the mouse is over them.
- [Survival] Skills at -100% progress now have a chance to decay when the player is exhausted (low Stamina) and when receiving damage (chance based), instead of just instantly decaying when passing out (at 0 Stamina).
- [Survival] When performing actions like gathering, drinking and eating while having both hands holding item/s, the character will drop them from the right hand ONLY for the duration of the action and take them back as soon as the action is finished, instead of keeping them on the ground, which forced the player to manually retake them.
- Various improvements to the movement system and pathfinding, making animals turn more smoothly and follow their mother/partner/peer more efficiently.
- [Survival] Fixed (finally!!) the infamous "permanent auto-walking while drinking" bug (also fixes corrupted saves).
- Fixed animals sometimes repeatedly bumping into an obstacle (wall, boulder) while trying to reach a target (like food or prey) which is on the other side of the obstacle.
These are only the most relevant changes, as always there are tons of other in this update, check the full changelog for the complete list!
Dan
Update v0.82.0 - Micronutrients, Skin Tone, many improvements!
This update IS compatible with savegames from previous v0.80.0+!
But it's still advised to start a new game, as some changes could potentially cause glitches.
--- This update brings some new interesting Survival mechanics, as well as the usual plethora of improvements and fixes ---
Added Micronutrients system:
- The character now needs 3 Micronutrients, represented in a global % value.
- The % of Micronutrients is involved in many character mechanics (like Health recovery, Strength, Muscle gain and more).
- The 3 Micronutrients are distributed in different foods, so having a varied diet will keep you strong and healthy.
- Added a small bar on bottom of the Calories bar (the green one), showing the % of Micronutrients.
- Updated the mousehover tooltip with the new info and added a menu tip, plus some in-game hints.
Added Skin Tone system:
- Skin Tone is visually more dramatic, as 100% is much darker than before.
- Skin Tone now reduces the temperature gain from Sun Exposure: the darker your skin, the less hot you get from sunlight.
- Skin Tone now changes depending on the player exposure to sunlight, and influenced by clothing and Hair length.
- Skin Tone cap isn't 100, but depends on the initial value: if starting from 0%, it's 50%, if starting from 50%, it's 75%, if starting from 100%, it can't increase any further. This simulates the fact that you can't change your "ethnicity" ingame, but only get tan.
- Updated Skin Tone description in the character creation/info screen and added a menu tip.
Additional Survival improvements:
- Light Fire action reworked: it's now accessible from the character actions menu (RMB on character or G -> Light Fire), and uses the same system used for placing structures; you can "place" the fire on a suitable spot, with fuel and no water/obstacles, and then proceed trying to light it. The game tells you if the choosen spot is suitable or not, and the reason why.
- Actions such as "Sharpen Stone" and "Clean Branch" are now also listed in the Crafting Menu (respectively for creating Sharpstone and Stick), making them more intuitive and accessible.
- Skill decay reworked: skill progress still decays, but the skill no longer drops when progress reaches -100%, unless you are exhausted (have 0 Stamina).
- Nearly all actions now consume Breath (to some extent), not just running/jumping/attacking.
- The way the Endurance skill increases changed, now it raises whenever Breath is consumed, not only when it is below 25 (which is still the fastest way to increase it).
- More...
- Landmass setting rebalanced to have a greater impact on the map size: the island is ~25% bigger, especially at high Landmass (>125%), while lower Landmass (<75%) is mostly unaffected or even smaller.
- Mountains resolution vastly improved (mountains from previously saved games are affected, but may present glitches).
- Mountains are 20% bigger and blend better with each other (mountains from previously saved games are not fully affected, and therefore may present glitches).
- Terrain color changes from seasonal temperature fluctuation rebalanced to be more noticeable.
- Fog effect slightly improved.
Important fixes:
- [Survival] Fixed a bug that prevented the player from sleeping by showing "I'm not tired!" even with low Stamina.
- [Survival] Fixed equip slots color being messed up under extreme atmospheric conditions.
- [Survival] Fixed timescale being 1x in Selection Mode (supposed to be 0.1x) when enabling it while previously in Equip Mode.
- [Survival] Fixed taming event not always triggering when supposed to, and not always showing the "Critter approaching..." message.
- [Survival] Fixed social animals not reacting if a member of their species is oneshotted by the player.
- [Survival] Fixed player being able to scout endlessy over the map edges.
- [Survival] Fixed temperature bar 0° marker not updating its position when
- More fixes...
These are only the most relevant changes, as always there are tons of other in this update, check the full changelog for the complete list!
