We have a new hotfix for you with the following changes that sort out quite a bit of infinite loading issues when loading into larger biodomes!
Fixes:
A bug where animal territories would surpass max population limits has been fixed.
Animal territories will no longer split when the max population is reached when there isn't a suitable area nearby the territory for the new territory to be located. In other words, it checks for space and if there isn't, they just won't keep spreading. It should also help with minimizing a bit of the explosions of small creatures that of course leads to starvation immediately.
A message has been added to the player events to let players know that the animal population cannot split due to no suitable placement being able to be found nearby it.
In entirely different news, our company has been pretty busy as we were competing and just won a $500k investment that involves a move to Buffalo, NY from the 43North Competition (http://www.43north.org/ )!
Good news is that patches won't be delayed by hurricanes again. ;)
We've a bit behind on forums, but Ryan will be getting caught up on anything/everything we've missed over the next few days now that we're back home.
Development Update & Other Projects
We saw some discussion on the forum about this so wanted to go ahead and send out an Announcement to everyone!
Tyto Ecology Complete and Being Supported
We do consider Tyto Ecology a complete product and are not currently working on any expansions, but we may in the future.
We are currently focusing on supporting Tyto Ecology players and releasing bug fixes and updates as needed.
While we do appreciate that there are a nearly infinite amount of suggestions on how much more in-depth and realistic an ecosystem simulator like ours could become over time, Tyto Ecology has met our goals and initial design plans -- and more -- already.
We'll do a better job of remembering to come check in on the Forums, but since they are less active lately if you need quick support for a problem, please consider heading to our Support Site where you can submit a ticket.
What are we working on now?
As some people noted on the forums, we are working on our new product, Tyto Online, which is a MMORPG focused on middle school science.
It's not super active on Steam, as we've actually been largely talking with educators who are excited to use it to improve their classroom science experiences. We have Ecology (quests + creating ecosystems as a sandbox) and Heredity (quests + breeding dragon-like creatures as a sandbox) in the game and are working on finishing up all of middle school life science by August for the coming school year.
This is a first step towards our long-term goal of being able to have one game with Tyto Online where students can learn across many subjects for years, in-depth and empowered.
For those who want to dig into what all that means, this is the introduction folder we share with educators that has an introduction deck and some PDFs explaining how the quests and sandboxes match up with science standards: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/s2qq48bvsulkbpx/AAAjbAYw-uVKE6LR-EM7g349a?dl=0
Tyto... Evolution?!
As part of Tyto Online, we are building Sandboxes into the game, like having a version of Tyto Ecology exist with the Ecology Module.
The one we've been in pre-production on to start soon is an Evolution Sandbox. We've realized this could make an incredible stand-alone game, perhaps something like... Tyto Evolution?! We'd love to keep putting our fun science games for a wide group and recognize a lot of adults aren't going to want to play Tyto Online, so we're really interested in continuing to release stand-alones as they make sense.
Basic concept: manipulating the environment (plant qualities, temperature, precipitation, earthquakes, etc.) and some aspects of the animals (toss some in a new area) to impact the success of traits that will randomly mutate -- starting with super simple creatures and then can morph into millions of possibilities over time.
Some of the traits include mode of consumption (herbivore, carnivore, etc.), size, exoskeleton vs. vertebrate, limbs (type/number), digits, neck, tail, teeth, color, brood size, camouflage and special features like vomit defenses.
We are also considering doing a Kickstarter to see what the support is like for potentially a lot more in-depth features up front on Tyto Evolution.
Here's a 2-page overview of what we have in mind right now for its design: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1keBkdDc8xdVoNDNXwjHhJ1lAhVv6C9wd5JMbS3Rpm9A/edit?usp=sharing
The game designer who is heading that effort up, Josh, has posted on the forums with some questions he'd love feedback on from the community as he develops out the idea! Please head here if you'd like to participate in that discussion: http://steamcommunity.com/app/453750/discussions/0/1696040635904693316/
Patch / Hotfix 1.17.2
Hello, everyone!
We've had a trickle in of requests or bugs so we wanted to do an update, but not quite worth calling a new version, I don't think!
1.17.2 Notes
Gallimimus and Tarbosaurus were corrected to be clappers, not slappers. Sorry about that!
Nemegtosaurus neck animation orientation was fixed to be much more horizontal.
Dipteris' producing fruit has been fixed.
UI should now scale correctly for all resolutions.
Adult marsh deer now use the correct texture.
Trout meshes has been removed from the Cretaceous Biodomes
Additional cost balancing on the Amazon has been done.
Lighting within the Cretaceous Biodome at night has been improved, so that users can actually see their dinosaurs at night.
The profile picture selection for new user creation no longer requires a double click to select.
Fixes were applied to correct conditions where time skip would become disabled. (Thanks to Dinocanid for not only notifying us, but then also coming up with reproduction steps!)
Hotfix 1.17.1
Thank you to everyone who has submitted bug/crash reports, and even tried the new patch to make sure it fixed their issues. Always great to have confirmation when it's something we haven't had happen in-house. :)
New things love to sneak in with other updates!
So, here's the hotfix patch notes for today:
Fixed quite multiple instability issues and crashes.
Fixed a possible crash that could occur in highly populated biodomes on load.
Fixed the issue of saves lost to the void when a crash occurs during account saving process -- on the next game load, they should return to your account now.
We still have one remaining known issue: a crash that can potentially wipe out your account's coins. We are trying to figure out how this occurs, so please bear with us, and let us know if this has happened to you as well!
Patch 1.17: Baby Dinosaurs, Balance Tweaks, etc.
A new patch is now live! Major features include a crash fix, adding baby versions of select dinosaurs, and tweaks to help with balance.
Read the full patch notes:
We’ve fixed a major crash that had to do with audio. Thank you to everyone who submits crash reports on a crash — this allows us to narrow it down. This one fix is about 80% of all crash reports.
Juveniles now count as part of the territory population cap for splitting territories, in order to prevent the ecosystem from getting to over-eaten status so quickly with quickly reproducing animals having so many juveniles in their territory. With this, we’ve also updated the user interface to include juveniles in the population graph and updated the max group sizes to be a bit larger so splitting isn’t happening too often.
When territories split, they will now be a bit further from each other than they currently are, again in an effort to help spread herbivores out more.
Large herbivores will now prioritize trees while small herbivores prioritize small plants.
Herbivores will now avoid (have less preference for) low health/leaf plants to prevent them from being destroyed. They’ll still eat them if they need to, or sometimes, but they will be less likely to be eaten off on chance if there are other options nearby.
Predators are now hungry when first placed, so it's not so anti-climatic that they don't hunt quickly! (Thanks to a user for suggesting this!) This will also help with eating over-populating herbivores faster!
When you click on a territory, it now highlights all the animals that belong to that territory, making it easier to find them.
Updated the Rainforest ground texture.
Baby dinosaurs!! Velociraptor, therizinosaurus, saurolophus, protoceratops, and tarbosaurus now have unique babies.
Hotfix 1.16.2
Okay everyone, hotfix update #2!
We made some changes based on requests and improving the save system that introduced a couple crashes that we've been working to fix. As they say in game dev, "99 bugs on the list, fix one bug, pass it around, 123 bugs on the list."
Thanks to everyone who submitted bug reports, sent us saves, etc. so that we could fix these as quickly as possible.
Patch Notes for 1.16.2
Several crash fixes based on submitted crash reports.
There is now a confirmation popup for changing game resolution settings that will revert if you aren't able / do not choose to confirm, so it won't be so easy to break the visual settings!
Animals will better prioritize their primary food role while hunting.
Carnivores will prioritize fresh kills over new killing of animals, meaning that they will share more food or come back to a carcass.
Plant leaf values reduced by 20% across the board (35% for fern, ranunculae, equisetum, dipteris). This is to reduce the overall carrying capacity of the dinosaur biodome, which was possible to go unreasonably high.
Protoceratops population reproduction and sexual maturity has been tweaked to be a less volatile population.
Velociraptors now have a larger max group size.
Dipteris no longer takes 12 years to mature, only 2 years.
Eastern Cottonwood and Eastern Red Cedar now have a higher leaf count.
Motion blur has been turned off... Unreal tricked us on that one!
Some UI fixes and tweaks, like some text being cut off.
Hotfix 1.16.1
Hotfix to Patch 1.16 is now live!
The main thing is fixed to fullscreen that caused issues for some people yesterday being debugged more based on your feedback. Those that had issues, please let us know if this fixes it for you!
"i'm glad you guys fixed all these issues so soon, but after the update my zalambdalestes are killing and eating my deltatheridium, wasn't this supossed to be fixed?"
Yes, yes it was. It now *really* is!
And, picture of Anachronistic Warbeasts (a sloth on a therizinosaurus' back) for good measure:
Patch 1.16: Bug Fixes!
Hello, everyone.
Thank you again for your incredible feedback on the forums. Patch 1.16 is now live!
1.16 Patch Notes:
As we mentioned, we need to spend time fully fixing fullscreen, but for right now we've made windowed fullscreen support more resolutions and reverted back to how it used to be to help with this.
Insectivore eating has been re-balanced and should be much more stable! They will no longer wait so long before seeking food, and babies are also eating well.
Herbivores will now correctly prefer fruit! This does not mean they will always choose it over leafs, but they will show a preference for it.
Your baby snakes and other baby extra small carnivores will no longer starve to death! Woo! I mean, they might still. But it won’t be because of our bug. Do keep in mind that babies will fail hunts more often than adults, especially against larger prey.
Fixed a fog density issue that was making the screen briefly way too white / bright during the day and night cycle.
Platanus now has a maturity timer (slows down overall reproduction).
Tweaked Biodex reproduction ratings for animals and plants.
Gila monster animations are fixed.
Fern and equisetum will now reproduce correctly (initially their group will increase, then they will begin to make new groups).
Dipteris is now fruiting.
Zalambdalestes can no longer eat extra small animals, intended so stop them from eating the deltatheridium.
We still have a backlog of items and aren't finished, but wanted to get these changes out quickly so you can enjoy your biodomes unhindered by insectivores starving to death, especially!
Known Issues / Upcoming Patch!
Thanks to everyone for an awesome first ~21 hours since we launched Cretaceous Mongolia.
The team has watched some awesome YouTube videos of people playing it together, giggling away!
We shared Best in Slot and Seri's videos yesterday, but also saw this one today that was just hilarious:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2A4CT5ih0M
So on that note, thank you all for your bug reporting and feedback on the forums. Given this was paired with an update, there's definitely been a few things that slipped past our QA.
We wanted to send out an update so you know that a patch is coming soon to address these issues.
Fullscreen Issues
The biggest reported issue has been around fullscreen and people having their task bars pop up under the game. This has actually been a known issue in our game engine (Unreal) for some time, unfortunately. As a temporary fix, we're going to add more resolutions to Windowed Fullscreen so most people should be supported there. Then we are going to continue to work until we fix this fullscreen issue fully and have it working as intended.
Also, if anyone is struggling right now, it's a bad workaround but there are keys to open up the menus on the bottom. Under your Settings > Key Bindings you can see or change them. 1, 2, and 3 open Producers, Consumers, Decomposers by default, for example. :)
Other Issues
Insectivores are still having some issues, so we've tweaked them again, especially so the small ones with faster needs to eat don't have as many spikes into dangerous hunger levels.
Carnivores that can only eat maximum extra-small species babies are starving. Oops! This is mainly just a couple species of snakes.
Various balancing tweaks based on reports with specific plants and animals.
Dipterus fruiting phase skipping.
The fog gets a bit too bright at one point during the day/night cycle.
We've also passed on research-based comments on appearance and animations to our art team. However, many were more about movement and we only have one animator on staff, so I'm not sure when she'll have time to address those! She's busy tweaking for the baby dinosaurs we're working on. ;)
Like this baby therizinosaurus that is still bigger than a velociraptor!
Developer Live Stream + RedBubble Shop!
We got a little hyped about the new Cretaceous Mongolia DLC, so now you get TWO announcements in one day!
Coming up in about 10 minutes, 3 EST, our Creative Director Caroline and our "Get a Bunch of Art and Sound Stuff Done" guy Kevin are going to do a live stream of the new biodome!
Link for our Live Stream
https://gaming.youtube.com/watch?v=5p1_oqEiBS0
Also, we're not nearly as entertaining as Seri or Best in Slot, so I suggest you go check their videos out if you haven't seen them yet. ;)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSIeUU5Rm34
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JE2RiIWnpv8
We decided to open a RedBubble Shop because we're so excited about the dinosaur art. Even if no one else buys anything, we wanted this for ourselves. ;)
And last, if you happen to be a Product Hunt user, we could use some upvotes and discussion there! https://www.producthunt.com/posts/tyto-ecology-cretaceous-mongolia-expansion
