*Note - These changes are only on the Experimental Branch. To access the Experimental Branch, be sure to select it in your Steam Library. If this app does not appear, please check if this app is hidden in your Library. Experimental Branch changes upgrade to the primary branch monthly.
While we're working on restoring Aziel, adding seamless space travel, and creating a much improved cloud saving system, we were able to hit a number of items from our bug reports to improve the overall experience. When we play the game we feel much still needs to be done to improve the core gameplay, and we're chipping away at it week over week.
[previewyoutube="8_e_Put1ahM;full"]
Mecha Crab
We rewrote the creature driving system to be far less complex in code and more modular. In addition to having strafing, running, jumping and shooting from the Mecha Crab with improved physics and math driven IK, this system can possibly be used in other ways. We'll experiment more with how to use this new tech as we go.
Temperature
The temperature dial has been changed to reflect your suit temperature, which is calculated by a number of real time weather forces in the game. You'll notice now that your temperature gauge will change when entering an enclosed vehicle or structure, which will also affect the frost on screen, since these areas are considered "optimal temperature zones."
We hope with making the temperature suit-centric will be more clear, and give more piece of mind when entering a warm zone. Remember, all the temperature readings are in Celsius.
Hover and Stamina Adjustments
In the Survival Update we re-established a baseline for the survival gameplay. In the past, many of the features were over powered and took away from the survival mechanics, and therefore we rebalanced in the Survival Update. That said, when we make adjustments we typically go too far on purpose, then gradually ease up to find the sweet spot.
Hover and Stamina are both key features in the game and will probably be endlessly tweaked, and in this build we're trying this: Hover duration is doubled, Stamina usage rate halved with its restore rate doubled. This will allow you to sprint for longer periods of time while feeling more responsive. The hover now sports a replenish timer, since hover replenishing takes 5 seconds to fill.
Lots of Minor Fixes
We've been chatting on Discord and fielding your responses on the Houston email channel, and have been able to knock out a large number of issues reported. The worms have been removed from the interior of the map (for now), suit attachment rendering fixed, and lots of other small things, including a quick pass on UI audio.
Added - support for oxygen replenish in enclosed vehicles Added - support for optimal suit temperature in enclosed vehicles Added support to be at optimal suit temperature in structures Added - support for Inflatable Dome to give Oxygen Added - timer to hover replenish Added - more space for inventory UI Added - reverb to System Computer and player voice Fixed - Mecha Crab movement Fixed - first person weapon shadows Fixed - first person attachment rendering Fixed - Depository to allow accessing from side Fixed - Inflatable Dome ramp Changed - Made heartbeat sound ramp up intensity Changed - Reworked foot landing sound Changed - Halved all footstep sounds Changed - Updated all UI sounds Changed - Increased default hover duration by double Changed - Removed worms from inside continent Changed - Changed Temperature reading to show suit temperature, not outside temperature Changed - hover replenish rate to double Changed - Stamina to replenish faster Changed - Made Stamina more responsive Changed - Improved sounds for building
Work In Progress
Save Game System
We're attacking the save game issues from all sides and are making this our top priority. Essentially, the legacy save system uses MySQL database calls. Because of the increased traffic these calls sometimes fail on the servers, which causes incomplete data. When we get the data back incomplete, the game doesn't quite know how to parse it. Rather than continually fixing this system, we're migrating to a new file cloud save system, which has backwards compatibility and redundancy, and will also allow for versions of your save data to be recovered if needed.
Aziel
The Aziel map has been restored and optimized and almost made it into this Experimental Build, but not quite. We've improved the lava rendering and snow FX, and Aziel is looking better than ever. We've been playing on Aziel all week and should be ready for the next release.
Space Travel
We're continuing to bring over features and content from the Beta Branches, and the Seamless Space Travel has been brought over and we've been space travelling internally all week. All that is left is to add the multiplayer component and the save game data when entering a new planet, which ties into the new Save Game System currently being worked on.
While we still have much to do to add, restore, and polish I'm happy to say development is coming along smoothly, mostly due to the code refactor and clean up that occurred leading up to the Survival Update. It seems we have a very solid base now, many of the performance problems of the past are behind us, and once we have the data system bulletproof we'll be able to really play offense week over week.
Over and out, Brian
Build 0.4.172 Available Now!
We had a pretty good week. Mech has been migrated and expanded from Beta. All vehicle cameras have been fixed. We added harvestable ruins to the map, along with making the lost drones harvestable. And lots of other small fixes and improvements.
Also, a lot of people were saying the Experimental Branch was more playable than the Main Branch, so we're updating both builds this week with the latest stuff.
Mech
The original launch version used a Mech system that was driven completely by math. While it allowed for nice foot placement we found that it just didn't have the right look and feel. Through the Experience builds we tried a fully animated system and while that did allow for some further functionality like running and jumping, it still didn't feel quite right.
Our ultimate solution is the combination of math driven IK on top of the animated control system, which gives the Mech a very detailed feel and allows for full control. We even added look-at constraints to the guns, so that the arms now aim at their targets - something that was asked for in the Beta Builds.
Vehicle Cameras
This was an easy one, but caught up to us after the engine update. As many of you know the radar map system has been changed to a 2D system, which allows more functionality and is far more optimal (and we've taken enormous strides to be performant). It turns out the vehicles still used the old camera layered radar which in the modern engine sometimes causes the terrain shader to wig out. So we fixed that.
Ruins and Lost Drones
We sprinkled some drones from the original settlement before the Osiris Missions began (more on story later...) in a past update. Now they are harvestable, which will give you more resources to survive on.
While we were at it we added lost bases to discover and harvest. Not a story element yet, but more something to find and harvest to ease the build progression until we have a chance to do a proper balance pass on the economy.
Lots of Minor Fixes
We had some players on Discord mention some textures and shaders were missing on some of the guns, so we fielded that, along with making sure bullets hit all the enemies correctly (a collision layer change that we missed through the AI pass, apologies). There's a lot of other small fixes too, we'll put these all up in the notes on our website.
Incase you missed it:
Stealth Gameplay
We're getting further afield with the AI and behavior systems, and tuning intricate behaviors is getting easier and easier. There's still more we'd like to add to make the creatures more animated when changing states, but the overall feel is coming along nicely.
Creatures in Mines Now Respect Walls
A weird bug to track down since it only occurred in the build, but we found it. Something to do with the pathfinding graph not registering. Anyway, we fixed that last week.
Additional Notes
In addition to all this you've probably noticed we've been making some changes around here: new store graphics, new library graphics, etc. This is all part of us taking over as publisher and sweeping up some unfinished items. We see this as a new beginning and therefore having a little fun with it: we're calling it Season 2. No, this doesn't mean we're going to throw DLC at you, and no, this doesn't mean it's going to be a 4 year season. It just means we got our game back, and the shackles have come off.
We also updated the website and put up the latest roadmap, so you can see how we're prioritizing our efforts.
I'd love to say we're just getting started here, but you probably won't believe me, which I totally understand. You've been shown a lot of stuff since launch, and it's been a rough road, but I can assure you that any issues we've had throughout this dev cycle have been handled and are long gone.
In the mean time we'll get back to it. Have a great weekend and I hope you enjoy!
Over and out, Brian
Experimental Build 0.4.157
In this build we focused on creature AI, added graphics and game options, and adjusted some economy balancing.
Fixed a bug causing creatures to hear the player everywhere, causing them to always track the player
Fixed creature collision detection in the mines
Fixed a bug causing creatures to still try to attack deceased players
Updated functionality and content for settings screens both in-game and in main menu
Rebalanced each of the different ingots to cost 2 ores from 3
Rebalanced Plastic and Rubber recipes to provide 5 units each and only consume a total of 20 units of gas
NOTE: A more complete resource rebalance will happen in the near future so crafting/building recipes will better reflect the current mineral ore drop rates, this is simply a quick intermediate measure to ease the grind while that rebalance happens.
Update 0.4.147 Available Now!
*Third person melee combat is now fully functional
Creature AI
With the new AI pathfinding and behavior system, we revamped and revived many of the creatures. The AI system allows for more detailed stealth gameplay, which we’ve started in this version.
New Creatures Minotaur and Elida have been added in this version. Be careful, they are not exactly friendly!
Hearing Radius Each creature now has a hearing radius based on it’s species and its life cycle maturity. Depending on your actions, a certain amount of noise is created. The louder your actions are, the easier it will be for predators to hunt you down.
Line of Sight and Viewing Cone A creature's amount of eyes and maturity has an influence on its sight. It’s sense of vision will allow the creature to hunt and attack, but can be obscured with obstacles, forcing the creature to depend on its other fierce senses.
List of Creatures Restored and Refactored
Crab Monster
Gnat
Colossus
Arachnoid
Snubs
*Snubs have been completely reanimated with improved ragdoll physics
Gameplay Improvements
3rd Person Combat
Terrain Climbing
Dust Storm Evading, crouching
Multi Tool Usage
Plant Harvesting
Water Creation in Furnace
Timer for Save Beds
Party UI in Character Screens
Storage Icons on Items
Compass and Map Icons in Multiplayer
Interact System and Highlighter Improvements
Meteor System overhauled
Slope reading in UI
Weight reading in UI
Chat improvements and clean up to allow more chat in less space
Field Guild added
*Colossus has made his majestic appearance in the game
Persistence
Crash Site Persistence
Crash Site is now persistent in single player with a first pass in multiplayer modes. This will enable you to continue harvesting your crashed pod over gameplay sessions, as opposed to forcing you to harvest on your first session.
Mineral Persistence
Minerals are now persistent in single player, with a first pass in multiplayer modes.
Plant Persistence
Trees now grow berries over time and will yield a certain amount per species of tree. Now having two gameplay states, plants will no longer disappear after harvesting. Instead, they will grow back their leaves.
*Geysers now sport an informative new interact system
Legacy Fixes
Legacy data fail safes and migrations
Some players with data from previous versions would get stuck during loading, due to data being stored in an incompatible directory for modern apps. Rather than asking players to delete, we wanted to find a way to migrate their data. To solve this, the game now automatically backs up data and replaces it with new data that can allow loading to continue, preventing the lockup from occurring.
Legacy multiplayer connection errors fixed
Some machines with different locales enabled would always report that the currently installed version is not the latest, prompting the user to attempt to download the latest version from steam. Our version checking system was incorrectly reading the localized decimal separator as an English comma in some locales that would switch the latest 4.064 version number to 4064, always coming back as larger than the local 4.064. Now the system uses properly invariant locales when reading data from the server, fixing these inconsistent cases, and allowing users from these specific areas to join multiplayer.
*Climbing dangerous slopes can be achieved by crouch walking
Bug Fixes
Vehicle Camera and UI has been updated to new optimized camera system
Vehicle Materials have been improved and optimized
Fixes to GAV, Hover, and Rover vehicles
Mecha Crab fixes
Custom Object materials improvements
Structure placement fixes
Melee weapons in first person
Durability balancing tweaked for some tools
UI fixes to external crates such as Depository and Space Debris Chest
Turret fixes
Faster melee attack in 3rd person to better match first person
Optimized meteor system
Improvements to creature looting death event
Fixes to confirm box cancel
Fixed pink skeliopod
Improved creature blood FX
First pass added creatures to dungeons
Increased quality of Mech textures
*Arachnoid has come back with a vengeance!
Thank you to those who have reached out on our platforms, sharing valuable feedback, and those who have emailed our support team, sharing all concerns, bugs, and personal experience of the game with us. We enjoy hearing from all of you and working closely together on how we can best improve the game and deliver the greatest version of Osiris: New Dawn that we possibly can.
Sincerely, Fenix Fire
*Field Guide Added
*Crab monster has been re-added and refactored with new AI system
Fenix Fire Has Officially Purchased The Publishing Rights
Here at Fenix Fire we believe 100% in our project and the community we’ve built over the years, and have therefore purchased the publishing rights at our expense.
While Fenix Fire and Reverb worked together closely prior to the successful Early Access launch of Osiris: New Dawn, we did not have a clear agreement of how to provide service to our players post launch in this ever changing market landscape. After much negotiation we have been unable to come to an agreement that mutually works for both parties, and therefore Fenix Fire has purchased the publishing rights in hopes that we can create a direct line of communication from developer to player. We sincerely wish Reverb the very best, and will always cherish the times we shared.
What this means is that Fenix Fire will now be fully owning and operating the game, and will be completely taking over these responsibilities for our players:
Fenix Fire will have a full time community manager to facilitate a healthy, vibrant community on OND channels.
Fenix Fire will create a fully redesigned and state of the art website for OND.
Fenix Fire will be operating and engaging in all our social media channels, Facebook, Twitter, and Discord.
Fenix Fire will be handling all the support email from our houston@fenixfire.com official support address. We sincerely want to solve your issue and make the game as stable and enjoyable as possible.
Fenix Fire has established accounts with external testing firms to conduct professional quality assurance.
In addition to this, self publishing the game will enable Fenix Fire to provide you the best service possible while allowing us to finish strong. Therefore:
We will be delivering monthly updates until launch.
We will keep the “Behind the scenes Experience” side app, and rename it to “Experimental” and build weekly to it, as many have noticed that we have since November. Then, after conducting professional testing for quality assurance, we will release the update on the main branch monthly. We will continue this until 1.0 is achieved.
It's been an adventure of a lifetime, and I look forward to finishing this project that all of us who have contributed are so proud of. We fully thank you for your patience and for joining us on this wild ride, and sincerely hope you enjoy the game.
Yours humbly, Brian
Experience Build 0.4.092
In this build we focused on solving the legacy data migration issue, which is what has caused some players to see the loading stop at 17%. Also, many of the creatures have been added back in using our new AI systems, along with adding in Carbon and Geysers which free up any progression stoppers. Here's the full list for the week:
All loading errors should be fixed, any corruptions found in old data will be automatically backed up then replaced with fresh data to prevent the game getting stuck during load
Carbon deposits can now be found on the map and in some mines
All Geyser types are now on the map
Added Parasyte attack behavior
Added Crab Monster spawning and attack behavior
Added Gnat spawning at night and attack behavior
Added Arachnid spawning at night and attack behavior
Trees that provide Tree Bark are now on the map
Minerals everywhere should now provide their intended amount of resources
Harvested plants will no longer be destroyed and instead display as harvested visually, they will also replenish their resources over time
Minerals will not replenish their resources
Time interval has passed
Found crates will no longer reload their inventories after reloading the game, but will recharge after a set
If you are still having trouble loading or are experiencing any input problems, please email us at houston@fenixfire.com. We will work closely with you to solve your issue. "Houston, I have a problem!!"
Experience Build 0.4.081
New update available now on our Experience Branch. We found there was a parsing issue on the version number system, since some languages use commas instead of periods to designate decimals. This update should solve that issue.
Fixed versioning locale issues preventing some players from entering multiplayer with an "Update to latest version" message
Party members can now access eachothers buildables
Fixed SimpleJSON's local parsing problems
Added in more safeguards to prevent the dust storm and sandworm from continuously spawning in sand dunes
Added in differentiation for Experimental build public servers and avatars
Reduced Film Grain
Improved creature based item icons
Patch 0.4.076
Added Beta and Gamma Mines
Shovel is once again able to collect Sand
Creature spawning when performing actions has been reduced in frequency and they now screech when emerging from the ground
The Sandworm can no longer be disturbed by other creatures or corpses causing the worm to relentlessly hunt down the player
The Sandworm is now more territorial out in the sand dunes and will more aggressively chase down the player if they venture too deep
Trees have a limited amount of berries that can be collected before needing to regrow
Creatures will now properly walk around all player-built structures and utilities
Save data has been moved out of Documents and placed in the app's data folders, when starting the game the first time after this patch, your previous data will be copied to the new location and a text document will be left behind providing the new location
Highlighting now properly displays what the player is interacting with
Better side stepping / strafing in 1st and 3rd person modes
Pickups now have highlights consistently
Hot Fix 0.4.064
Solved URL errors causing multiplayer data to not save
Dust storm damage in multiplayer now only effects the local player
Sand worm sound now has distance falloff
Hot Fix 0.4.055
Fixed input errors when a gamepad or peripheral controller is detected
Added Key Binding support
Creatures can now hear, with a certain radius per species
