Yo, it's patch day! Mostly bug and exploit fixes again but one small new feature - you can use the Set Policy dialog for ranged weapons as well as their ammo. So if you want people to automatically collect bows or pistols from corpses, you can do that now :) I always kind of didn't want to do that because I was worried about having too many menu options, making the UI look cluttered and confusing for new players. But I found it was something people asked for a lot, and it's not a huge change, so I figured maybe I was just overthinking that a bit too much.
Also I've slowed down the rate at which crops die from frost. I think I actually should have done that a long time ago but I only recently realized quite how fast they do die. It was ramping up very quickly with each extra degree below zero. I don't think I originally intended that one night of mild frost would be enough to kill them but that was very often what happened. Hopefully AI communities will be more likely to survive winter with this tweak, and it's a bit more forgiving for players. I also made a frost "healthbar" visible when you highlight crops so you can see what's going on.
Here's the full change list:
Enabled Set Policy dialog for ranged weapons as well as their ammo
Under-construction buildings only become impassable when at least one resource item has been spent on building them, so it's less exploitable (e.g. to build walls of under-construction barns)
Made crops die of frost more slowly and people get warmer faster when near to fires. Show frost bar when highlighting crops, if they have been affected.
If a building has enemies inside it you can't scavenge items from it
Some small tweaks to when a few people's and communities' names are discovered in Story Mode
Campfires created by NPCs disappear after not being used for a week, so the map doesn't fill up with them
Added a checkbox in the debug menu F8/Graphics Debug/Show HUD to disable the minimap and healthbar HUD (e.g. for taking screenshots). Does nothing if sidebar layout is enabled.
Added adjustable deadzone for triggers on gamepads
Fix for AI building graves on top of farm zones with no current crops
Fix for AI treating areas as enclosed if they have under-construction fences around them
Fix for bunny and deer animation freezing if you target them in the PiP when they run away from you
Fix for Charlie Gant staying rooted to his spot in the prison if you kill all the Survivalists and he surrenders to you and joins you
Fix for infected icon not being shown on foods in action menu when feeding someone unconscious
Fix for NPCs attacking you if you carry a friend to them and they say 'Hey, drop him/her right now!' and you drop them while they are saying that
Fix for NPCs attacking you if they bump into your vehicle when it's moving too slowly to actually cause them damage
Fix for roads and rivers sometimes looping over themselves in terrain generation
Fix for people sometimes being able to pick up bodies through walls
Fix for exploit where you can hide from enemies in roads leading out of play area in Story Mode, by driving vehicles over the rocks into them
Fix for being able to break some Story Mode quests by molotoving the stranger at the start
Fix for exploit where you can encumber NPCs by giving them items for free
Fix for error message telling you you can't sell a backpack to an NPC because you'll be encumbered even if in the same trade you were selling them the heavy items that encumbered you
Fix for AI settlements sometimes having crops on roads
Possible mod crash fix
Updated Brazilian Portuguese, German, Japanese and Lithuanian translations
I've also promoted v254 to the main branch and XBox.
What's this publicbeta thing?
v256 will be in the "publicbeta" branch on Steam for a while, before pushing it to the main game and to XBox. 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".