Hey everyone, happy new year! It's time for a small patch, v224 in publicbeta. I've added a loading screen when you start a new game and select a Story, so the game doesn't just stall for ages when you click Zedmulate anymore. I've changed the Cyrillic font again - so now all Cyrillic text uses the same Komika style as the Roman languages do - thanks to Pavel Borisov for adding those characters!

The rest is just bug fixes but one of them was pretty shocking. It turns out the game was getting updated at a slower tick than it should have, so you would often see longer animations getting out of sync with the sounds or game events they triggered. I think it happened when I upgraded Unity a while back. It didn't affect the framerate per se but you might feel that you move a bit faster now when walking or running. I really should have noticed that one sooner. Here's the full list:

• Loading screen when you load a story (as opposed to stalling for ages, especially for big workshop mods)
• Show error messages when a savegame fails (e.g. due to lack of disk space) and return token if one was used. Also show free disk space on SaveGame menu.
• Cyrillic characters for Komika text font
• Updated Indonesian, Japanese, Latin American Spanish, Polish, Russian and Simplified Chinese translations
• NPCs get a memory that you Helped them if you give them free stuff via one-sided trading
• Possible fix for being able to knock someone out just after fisticuffs, which then leads to them declaring war on you
• Fix for memories of who beat up who being the wrong way round after a feud is finished
• Fix for being able to damage NPCs with melee weapons in fisticuffs
• Fix for animations getting out of sync with game
• Fix for gangs that spawn in Ritzville not being able to get out by attacking the gates
• Fix for Intimidation quest not continuing after saying 'I'd watch my back if I were you'
• Fix for chef not being able to cook anything when a vehicle was close to their campfire
• Fix for a situation where someone with a crafting role gave up because they didn't dump containers in their inventory to make space
• Fix for hang when you pick up the green passes after having recruited certain characters

I've also moved the previous patch, v223, to the main branch as it doesn't seem to have have had any major problems. That adds the Medic Role and one-sided trading.

What's this publicbeta thing?

v224 will be in the "publicbeta" branch for a while, before pushing it to the main game. If you want to try the latest features as they come out (and help test them!) it's a good idea to start using this branch. But keep in mind:

• Because it's the bleeding edge it could be less stable
• If you want to be able to play online co-op with someone you'll need to be on the same version as them
• If you go back from the "publicbeta" branch to the main branch you may not be able to load savegames created on "publicbeta".

To use publicbeta, just right-click on Survivalist: Invisible Strain in your Steam library and go to Properties, then Betas and in the drop-down select "publicbeta".