After reading all your feedback in the forums, in your reviews and watching numerous Let's Plays we've come up with some more balancing improvements. Especially regarding ANI we wanted to make sure she is less of a burden.
That she sometimes moves in weird paths, however, is not something we can change everywhere, especially in the desert where the navigation mesh is very, very large. She also will not be able to move everywhere ION can, that's just how it is with her wheels. But what we can do is make her more robust when it comes to being a combat companion. She now takes less damage from falling or when getting attacked. She already takes enough damage from all the bad weather on the planet.
Full change list:
Increased ANI's damage resistance (all kinds of damage).
Reduced the length of night. It is now half as long as daytime.
Added another 25% general movement speed increase for ION and ANI.
Fixed a bug that caused showing "Not enough energy" for lamps and other devices in the desert in the German localization.
Reduced energy consumption from sprint mode by 15%.
Tetrerium is now displayed larger on the compass once detected by ANI.
Fixed a bug that would sometimes disable lights within world portals or tumblers making them hard to see in the environment.
Improved the sand worm to not only apply damage to a single target when rising out of the ground.
This update comes with a number of fixes and improvements for players using a controller. Additionally we changed the terrain of the desert to create less confusion when it comes to these sediment lines you can see everywhere on the hills. Some of those looked like paths, but they were too steep to be climbable.
Full change list:
Important: On controllers the B button now opens the Library (there was a control binding missing for this action). Since that button was previously bound to "Interact" (scanning resources, activating objects), interaction is now on the A button. Please keep that in mind when you're using your controller after this update. We had to revert the control bindings to the defaults for internal reasons, apologies for that!
Increased the highlights of UI objects, which is especially helpful for controller users as they don't have a mouse showing them exactly what element they are hovering.
Fixed library handling for controllers. Scrolling down in the text box (if the text is longer than the box) is a bit tricky, though. To do that, controller users have to navigate all the way to the bottom of the list, then the text box gets focused and you can navigate down/up to scroll. To go back up to the list and select another library entry, navigate the stick to the left. For Keyboard+Mouse users everything stays the same, except they can now use the directional keys to scroll down the list of library entries.
Fixed a bug when using the controller in the inventory and getting stuck after using a power-up, which required reopening the inventory.
Fixed the resolution dropdown for controller users.
Fixed a rare bug that would cause ION to fall through the ground on loading any savegame.
Increased visibility of distant compass resource icons.
Increased ANI's attack rate.
Fixed a bug preventing Attractor or Memory Upgrade to get unlocked when specific events or triggers were skipped. Reload your savegames and they should be in your inventory ready to get crafted.
Changed the desert terrain texturing and reduced the sediments that looked like "paths" but were too steep to climb.
Thanks to everyone for supporting Phoning Home! We wish you all a great weekend!
Update 4 - UI Tweaks, Auto-Sprint & Balancing
We added a distance display for ANI. The number below her icon on the HUD shows the distance between her and ION in meters.
Furthermore we a added a distance display for task markers on the compass to give you a better idea how far away the location is.
Further changes:
Changed the sprint mode to a sprint toggle (read: auto-sprint). Hit the sprint button once and sprint mode is enabled (if energy is above 20%), hit it again and sprint mode is off.
Reduced the effect of ANI slowing down due to her corrosion level.
Difficulty balancing: Slightly reduced the damage of the stone giant attacks
Difficulty balancing: Added a 10% miss rate for the sand worms and tumblers
Fixed a bug preventing Attractor or Memory Upgrade to get unlocked when specific events or triggers are missed.
Made sure that Attractor and Thruster are disabled during the endgame sequence.
Thanks again for all your support. We really appreciate your feedback so we can make your Phoning Home journey even more enjoyable.
Let us know what you think about the changes so far!
Update 3 - Improvements
Full change list:
Added an option to disable the UI for screenshots or video recording purposes. Toggle it with F3.
Increased the movement speed of ION and ANI: 20% with the Hybrid Thruster, more noticeably when sprinting and sideways.
Reduced energy consumption from sprinting by 30%.
Fixed a problem with the compass not switching further after repairing the third radio tower. No replay needed. Your old savegames should work fine now.
Fixed a problem with the compass not switching further after returning to the forest with 12 Tetrerium and the radio stations fixed, synched and having called P1 for the second time.
Added a significant amount of additional resources in the desert and western forest areas.
Improved the timing of a series of voiceover dialogs.
Fixed a bug that caused ANI to fall from the Skyscraper once getting in range. And falling from skyscrapers usually hurts. We don't want to hurt ANI.
Thanks for all the support and we really appreciate any and all feedback about the game.
Now that there is an option to disable the game UI, why don't you show us your favorite screenshots?
Update 2
We have been acting like busy little tumblers for the past 2 days working to fix problems that you reported. The most important change is the addition of an autosave rotation system for your convenience when you run into trouble and have to load a previous game state. There are now 3 autosaves that you can choose from when ION or ANI dies. But we'd also like to make you aware that you can make up to 20 savegames of your own. We suggest to save often.
To do this quickly, there is also a quicksave option by hitting F5 to save and F9 to load it again.
Full change list:
Changed crafting rules for Light Probe to require 2 x Crystal instead of Tetrerium and Plasma Charge to require 3 x Ferron instead of Tetrerium
Fixed Thruster achievements (they were not progressing past 1)
Added a rotating automatic save system, which always stores the last 3 autosaves that you can choose from when something unexpected happened
Clicking "Retry" on the gameover screen will now open the load game menu
Added more resources in the desert
Fixed and improved the display of the guiding compass task markers
Reduced ANIs fall damage by 20%
Increased ANIs Plasma Charge damage by 25%
Fixed a few typos
Fixed a possible dead-end when first returning from the desert after the third sandstorm
Fixed a problem with ANIs behavior in the ice cave
Adjusted the volume of a series of voiceovers
Fixed a dead end due to a wrong condition if ANI was found before Sister's CommArray was repaired
Improved ANIs pathing through portals that ION made
Now, time for you to continue your journey, fellow explorers. :ion:
Update 1
Thanks for all your feedback in the last 24 hours. We have been working on a fix for the most pressing issue with the XBox controller and added a few more fixes throughout the day.
Change list:
- Fixed XBox Controller sensitivity
- Added option to toggle motion blur
- Fixed a rare teleporter bug that would prevent opening new portals
- Fixed a few spanish text formatting errors
- Fixed a spot in the desert where ANI disappeared
Behind The Scenes – Voiceovers
After an exhilarating 2016, full of challenges and surprises; we are now almost ready to launch Phoning Home on Tuesday 7 February.
We’ve dramatically increased the scope and depth of the project over the last 6 months, including sound design, gameplay, and most recently, narration and voiceovers.
During our studio recording sessions, we recorded a few clips of our voice actors working on the #PhoningHome dialogue. We’ve put together a highlights video to give you a feeling for our English and German storytelling.
Can you guess who voiced ION's ship, TR2? Be sure to leave us your feedback in the comments!
