Outbreak: Pandemic Evolution
Update 14 - Improved Capture Mechanics
in this update the game is going under some very drastic changes. For first, when you kill mutants they now can drop a spore (50% chance), if you don't pick up the spore quickly a new mutant will spawn out of it. Capture Points have been added to the game, either steal the gasoline from the military's generator or inject the toxin into a mutant hive. The toxin is now the only way to permanently drive off the mutants. It's the only chance for you to survive.
Mutant Hives are now also spawning mutants, meaning the more land the mutants have the more of them will raid you. We increased the amount of starter resources in the crafting room at the facility so you can stockpile on ammunition quickly. As usual, your feedback is needed so we can balance the game. Please note that if you speed up the faction movement in the game the first day of the game will be extremely hard to get a foothold - it's recommended not to do this in single-player. The game will play/feel differently now, you might not even make it to the power-plant during your first day.
Major Changes:
- Added control points you can capture through-out the map.
- New Item Gasoline (will be needed for the robot patch).
- Toxin clears control points from mutant infection, simply drop it and retrieve it again after destroying a hive.
- Mutants have a chance to drop spores when they die, a new mutant will raise out of it - so make sure you pick it up when it drops.
Minor changes:
- Improved landscape textures.
- Increased starter resources in the crafting room for additional ammo.
- Both day and night time are bit brighter.
- Ingame Map has been updated with the crash-site location and mutant home-area.
Update 13 - Polishing it one more time!
as announced on our forums we just released our last polishing update before shifting the focus back to content. These are the remaining issues you have reported and again we like to thank everyone involved in the bugreporting and testing. One request has been full controller support for the game and we were able to fully integrate that for you. If you play the game with a controller you will notice that you now have a new cursor that can also be controlled with your XB1 controller. Next week we hopefully can bring back VoiceChat, currently we are waiting on an engine update for Unreal4 which will solve a few engine bugs including voicechat. So Update 14 will contain the improved capturing mechanic, we will explain how it works exactly once the update hits the preview branch.
Changes :
- Full controller support (XB1) has been integrated. (Menus/Cursor etc.)
- Fixed the glass doors. (again)
- VoiceChat has been disabled currently as we are adding a push-to-talk button.
- Flashlight is now syncronized over network. (we might add additional effects later.)
- Fixed collision of some stairs at the backside of buildings.
- Fixed Apply/Revert buttons on the resolution screen.
- Fixed/added additonal collision on the train.
- You can no longer run inplace/loose stamina.
- Fixed purple light emitting from the ceiling of your base.
Free Keys, Tradingcards & Development Roadplan
today we would like to talk a little bit a bit about the next upcoming patches for Outbreak but before we do so we have a small announcement to make.
Free Keys
In the last 2 weeks we have received incredible feedback from our community which helped us to update and balance our game swiftly. We would like to thank you for your support and decided to reward players who contribute during the development and give us valuable feedback with free keys. You will find replies by our staff in your feedback threads. Throughout the next weeks we will continue to do so and we hope - especially with the upcoming updates - that you'll continue to be so vocal on our forums.
Roadplan September/October
The next upcoming patch will feature improved capture mechanics. Currently all you have to do to capture areas is just cleaning them out - that's a bit too easy. So instead, each area will have a capture point and the way you are defeating the mutants will change. To capture an area from the military you will have to steal the gasoline from their field generator. If you do so all remaining forces in the area will immediately defend it - so make sure you know what you are up against. For mutants it won't be so easy anymore. To take an area from mutants you'll have to inject the mutant toxin into the hive. Mutants are attracted by electricity and their hive will cover the field generator if they take an area from the military - so the only way for you to take areas back from the mutant faction is capturing them and extracting the toxin. (The current mechanic on how to get the toxin won't change)
Another important change is that the mutant spore that currently drops when killing mutants near a hive will spawn 2 new mutants if you don't pick them up - we assume you get the picture here, just mowing them down without taking care of the spores will no longer work after this patch. This will also be a good reason why you don't want the military to fight them - because they just kill them, sending you presents your facility every time they take some of the mutants down.
Additionally our 3d artists are already working on the craftable robots. While these will follow and protect you we like to integrate them into the capture mechanic, so you can assign them to areas to captured and they will keep these areas clean of mutants & military.
Trading Cards
We are also releasing today our first set of Steam Trading cards. A card should be awarded for every 20 minutes of playtime. Within the next weeks we will create a few more cards once our artists have a bit more time. Currently they are working on the upcoming robot patch as mentioned above.
We hope you are happy with the progress of the game and the direction things are going on - in any case please let us know!
UPDATE 24.09.2016 - Capture Mechanics Patch is now live.
Update 12 - Objectives & More Balancing
with this update we are introducing the objectives system. Objectives will help you through the first days and teach you how to play the game. Simply pick an objective in the Objectives Window and track your progress. We rebalanced the game-world a bit, moved spawns, added a bit more action to Day 1 and rebalanced some of the dynamic events happening in the game. Due to changes on the savegame-structure old savegames will no longer work with the latest version of the game.
Major changes:
- Added objectives system that will help you to track your progress in the game. Simply open the objectives window and click on the tasks to enable tracking of their progress.
- Added objective "Getting started."
- Added objective "Hunting & Cooking."
- Added objective "Build a turret."
- Added objective "Capture a mutant."
- Added objective "Find a cure."
- Refinery now can recycle walkietalkies into electronics.
- Key O now opens the objective window.
- Lowered scrapmetal requirements at the refinery to 2 instead of 3.
- Drinking dirty or pure water no longer consumes the bottle.
- Using pure water in the stove will no longer consume the bottle.
- Game now saves used weapons.
- Game now saves progress on objectives.
- Landmines do not detonate when crouching around them (this will allow you to place them in corridors. Careful! They still trigger while not crouching.)
- Increased sulfur crystals (starter resources) from 1 to 3.
Bugfixes:
- Adjusted running with pistol animation.
- Adjusted running with rifle animation.
- Adjusted hands not to pop out of the camera view.
- Water now has proper effects when shooting it.
- Improved performance slightly on shadows.
- Improved brightness slightly on shadows.
Patch 11 - A bit more polishing
We were looking at the playtime of people giving it a bad review and they all have one thing in common - they played it for less than 1 hour. So we believe new players don't really get the game. They don't know what to do and can get bored before the game really starts since they just run around collecting loot, shooting NPCs randomly, then get creamed in their defenseless base on the first night - if they make it that far and didn't quit before. That needs to change and it's something we will start to work on next week.
For new players there will be a new objectives window that will direct you a bit through the game, we will combine that with Steam Archivements - completing an objective will also give you that specific archivement on Steam - this should give new players some directions in the game and hopefully stops them from running around and getting bored. How long did it take you until you figured out how to play the game and how everything works ?
Changes:
- Raccoons no longer get picked up by your motion-tracker.
- Added Join/Leave Messages for players.
- Fixed Stamina drain/running when not moving.
- Improved performance underwater.
- Improved Gamepad controls.
- Added additional configuration options for the game-pad to the Keybinding menu.
- Fixed some shadowing artifacts.
- Fixed a bug where a pink light would shine through your base.
- Military is a bit more accurate on close-range and a bit less accurate on far range.
- Landscape received a more detailed underwater texture
- Increased Landscape brightness slightly
Patch 10 - Raccoons added!
before the weekend starts and some of us finally get their first day off (no worries, one of us will be always around) we added another wildlife animal - the raccoon. We hope you enjoy their behavior. Please note that if you abuse too many of them we are going to call animal-control and report you!
Next week we are going to revamp the capturing mechanic and add objectives to the UI so new players figure out the game much faster.As usual please report issues you are experiencing to our forums and give us your feedback on the changes. While on the topic we would like the thank everyone for the feedback you have provided - you helped us to release 10 Patches in 7 Days and polish the game very quickly. That would not have been possible without you. Since our community is still very small we rely on every single feedback.
Changes :
- Added 2nd wildlife animal raccoon.
- Changed highlight color of loot to purple, increased brightness as well.
- Populated the game-world with more wildlife.
- Changed bear meat into raw meat.
- Lowered vision ranged on bear.
- Lowered social range on bear. (he won't call his buddy from a mile away)
- Reduced lootdrop on bears since we added additional wildlife. (you don't want open a butchery shop do you ?)
- Reduced assisting range on military and increased total-strength-allowance in the town.
Update 9 - Have No Fear The Bear Is Here
today we are adding the first wildlife animal to the game, the bear. When left alone it won't bother you unless you get too close but if you want to hunt it down be prepared, this animal doesn't drop in a few shots like a mutant and can kill you easily in melee range. More to come very soon!
Major Changes:
- Added first wild-life animal: Bear.
- Added various raw meat items to the game.
- You can now cook a bear steak.
- You can now cook a single egg.
Minor Changes/Fixes:
- Night-Time is a bit brighter.
- Increased amount of bullets when crafting ammo.
- Fixed collision on that little office building at the Dam.
- Added OnScreen message when trying to toggle an unpowered switch in the game.
- Added "Getting Started" Window when starting a new game in Single-Player or as Host.
- Doors only open for players in automatic mode.
- Optimized some network objects.
- Fixed a bug with the AR17 (couldnt fire the weapon even when you had ammo)
- Shadows are a bit brighter.
Patch 8 - More balancing
this is just a quick follow-up due to the changes we were making in the game. We noticed that the game got a bit too hard with the weapon changes so we are rebalancing health & health recovery slightly.
- Pistol is a bit more accurate now.
- Basic Bandages are a bit more efficiant.
- Medicial Bandages have been made more efficiant.
- FirstAid Kit received a massive boost in efficiancy.
- Mutant Attack on Day 1 has been reduced to a single encounter (so you can be more prepared)
- Fixed Fog Effects.
Patch 5/6 & 7 - Hotfixes, Balancing & GFX
Fixes & Adjustments :
- Empty water bottle now can be recycled into plastic.
- Fixed Videotutorial not playing properly.
- Fixed Weapon Damage on NPCs.
- Fixed Savegame Delete Confirmation popping up a 2nd time when pressing enter.
- Fixed Ingame Map blurry on low-quality settings.
- Fixed Doors to Recycler, weren't not configured properly.
- Rearranged some parts of the scene to prevent objects from loading in too late (You could see the water under the base for a moment)
- Adjusted shadow effects in the game.
- Adjusted general brightness in the game.
- Added underwater foliage.
- Polished underwater effects.
- Added fish (only visual) for underwater ambience.
- Added transition effect when coming out of water.
- Base Alarm no longer triggers when repairing doors.
- Doors will open a bit earlier and close a bit later in automatic mode.
- Fixed a collision bug at the entrance of the facility (shots were blocked at the entrance)
- Fixed : Eating raw eggs didn't give you any food boost.
- Fixed : Stove wasnt converting dirty water into pure water.
- Trash weight has been reduced.
- Flour even it states 5lb is 2.5lb ingame for balancing purposes.
- Stove inventory is now saved properly.
- Food now fills you up much longer.
- UI now displays the day properly.
Patch 5 - Cooking More Content
as promised earlier you finally get the first content patch is here - we had a few bumps on launch but hopefully with the last 5 patches you'll be more happy with the game. In this patch we added cooking to the game, you now have a stove that requires power in order to create food. You will be able to find new food resources in the game-world as well which you can use to produce food. Baking and cooking will take time and we need your feedback on the mechanic.
Additionally we rebalanced the weapons, especially the starter pistol was way too powerful. So all weapons now have a base spread, iron-sight spread and bullet damage will decrease over range. This will make combat harder and we would like to have your feedback on these changes as well. We also added a lot of fixes & changes that you have been requesting or suggesting. We will continue updating the game swiftly at least once per day until the end of the week, then switch to a 2-3 days update cycle until the end of the month where we focus on additional content creation.
There is a lot of planned content already and the feedback we got so far really helped us developing the game faster than we had hoped initially.
Major Changes:
- Facility now has a stove that can be used to cook & bake food. We will not tell you all receipes but a piece of flour and an egg might be found in your base.
- Added new item "egg" to the game.
- Added new item "flour" to the game.
- Added new item "baking soda" to the game.
- Added new item "Empty Water Bottle" to the game.
- Added new item "Dirty Water" to the game.
- Added new item "Pure Water" to the game.
- Added new item "Fried Eggs" to the game.
- Added new item "Bread" to the game.
- Added new item "Cake" to the game.
- You can now fill up empty water bottles in lakes and rivers.
- All weapons now have spread, iron-sight spread and damage reduction on range. These values likely will need some tweaking. (Feedback please!)
- Starter pistol has its base-damage reduced slightly.
- Starvation causes health damage.
- Thirst now drains stamina.
- Overweight (60lb+)now drains stamina.
- Huge Overweight (70lb+) now reduces you to walk speed. (no more running around with 300lb)
- When crouching you will no longer emit noise into the game-world. (So NPCs cannot hear you)
Minor Changes & Bugfixes:
- Nametags have been disabled in PvP.
- Nametags Range has been increased in COOP/PvE.
- Fixed a network replication bug that could cause lag when turning on external power at the Dam.
- Scrapmetal got a new 3D model.
- Latest Savegames are now in the top of the savegames list.
- Savegames now can be deleted.
- Savegames Scrollbar now displays properly
- Fixed : Some doors were missing keypads or keypads didnt respond.
- Fixed : Underwater Sound Effects were not playing properly.
- Fixed : No longer playing footsteps underwater when close to the ground.
- Added more loot spawns through-out the world.
- Introscene skippable with escape or space key.