Hey Folks!
Update v0.14.4.8 is now available on Steam, and your clients should be updating shortly.
This is a hotfix update to our "Across the System" milestone, which makes several improvements to AI, as well as some performance enhancements.
Saves from v0.14.0.0 and later should work. Note that if you were experiencing issues in the older save, this patch may fix some, but others may persist depending on the cause.
Note: 📢 indicates changes inspired by community feedback!
General Changes
📢 The X hotkey now cycles PDA Vizor modes, instead of just opening the PDA Vizor.
Exiting to the Main Menu should now be faster, and result in significantly less RAM inflation.
AI Jettison rules changed to improve framerate hitching, and prevent AI from jettisoning items for fun.
📢 AI should now sleep more reliably during sleep shift (when sleepy).
AI will no longer resume watching TV before they started watching it.
PDA NAVLINK ship renaming will no longer pause/unpause/etc. the game while typing.
Players can no longer rename NPCs or robots, which could break the game.
Interactions can now append notes to PDA Notes (for modding and future use).
The text on the PDA PASS app is no longer cut off.
Players have been pretty excited about the new PDA features, overall. One thing many players immediately missed, though, was the directness of the old hotkey's toggling of DamageViz/PowerViz on and off. So we've switched the X (default) hotkey back to immediately toggling the Vizor overlay on/off again. It will now cycle through all available modes on your PDA (including back to Default). The L hotkey remains as-is, opening and closing the Vizor app.
Performance got a bit more attention this patch, with a pretty big change to the way the game exits back to the Main Menu. Previously, it would significantly inflate RAM usage each time it returned to the Main Menu. Usually to the tune of hundreds of MB, and sometimes more.
This patch optimizes the way we load data, and reuses existing data more efficiently. The result is less RAM inflation when returning to the Main Menu, which also happens faster now as a bonus!
AIs also had some work done this patch.
First, we fixed a bug where AI could jettison things for fun. And it turned out this was also a performance hog, since it could check the jettison action on every map object each time it had a free moment. AI should no longer be doing this now.
We also made some changes to how the AI behaves in Sleep shifts. Previously, AI treated Sleep shift as a sort of free time, and often didn't get around to actually sleeping. Now, if they are even a little sleepy, they will prefer to sleep first, unless they have a serious survival need (like breathing, staving, etc.). Only after they are fully-rested will they pursue other activities.
This patch also includes a few other minor UI and AI fixes.
Kitfox Festival
Also, today is the first day of the Kitfox Festival, and we're celebrating with 20% off Ostranauts till August 14th! You can also pick up the rest of the games in the Kitfox catalogue on sale during the event.
Furthermore, our friends at A Sharp (designers of King of Dragon Pass and Six Ages) also just announced their brand new procedural adventure game, Thousand Hells: The Underworld Heists. If you're into tactical battles and underworld mythology then this might be for you. You can watch the announcement trailer here:
and wishlist the game on Steam here:
As always, there's plenty more for us to fix, change, and add! And we'll be continuing in roughly that order. In the meantime, let us know if this patch helps you out, as well as if it reveals new problems!
Best,
Daniel Fedor
Founder, Blue Bottle Games, LLC