Welcome colonists, to your playtest recap for versions 11a to 11e. We had a long break in updates, and then a rapid fire round of builds to show off. We will start releasing patch notes with every update going forward in preparation for future release.
Outworlder Alpha1-Preview11a (2021/05/24)
Changes
- Overhauled world generation to distribute loot and ore more evenly; natural ores are now different based on depth.
- Landing Pad now allows you to have your colonists build the shuttle to escape the planet (or be greeted with a Coming Soon screen; you’ll just have to find out which one it is)
- Random mobs now spawn on a per-biome basis.
- Walking on or mining ore will now use the StoneBase sound effects.
- Rare ores and gemstones are now considerably harder to find. Certain ores will only spawn at depth.
- Mining tiers implemented, which will prevent players from mining outside of their tech range. You are allowed to mine ore a tier above your current pickaxe, albeit slowly.
- All music tracks now have an in-combat variant
- NPCs will now get materials from the closest eligible chest instead of any eligible chest
- VSync is now enabled (will be made available as a setting soon)
- Tab menu now offers an overview tab that serves as an online player list with a simple minimap. Note: Not all tab buttons at the top are functional yet.
- Debug menu now also shown in Tab menu (its future home)
- Humanoid NPCs now miss and shoot in flurries spaced out by delays; they’ll miss more against human players than other NPCs.
- Force scientist, engineer and armorer to spawn first, and increase probability of those 3 professions spawning until there’s at least 1 in each active player colony.
- Raid NPCs will now run towards your colony by picking a moving target from your colonists. Known issue: Raiders may get stuck with nothing to do if the target dies. They will stay near the colony until death.
- Increased smoothness of physics updates and added damping to camera movement to reduce scrolling jitter
- NPCs now vault over 1-block high obstacles while pathing
Bugfixes
- Fix phantom tooltips sometimes showing when an inventory window closes while a tooltip is appearing
- Fix weapon muzzle flash showing when dropping a hauled item while a weapon is selected
- Update Beast and Predator hitboxes to reduce snagging and getting trapped
- Fix issue that could cause creatures to get stuck charging towards position 0,0
- Fix game settings (world seed, etc) getting reset on resume
- Fix damage effects for creatures not showing on clients
- Tweaks to crashed droppod generation; won’t sink into the ground as deeply anymore
- Fix issue that could cause trees and plants not to get cleared properly when a drop pod crash uproots them
- Fix issue that could cause dropped items to sink into the ground when restoring a saved game
- Fix issue that caused NPCs to jump in place after climbing a ledge
- Fix “Get all weapons” debug command to give you a random sampling of weapons instead of filling your inventory
- Fix “Need food” being reported even when you have enough food, due to facility storage not being counted
- Fix wires not being craftable
Outworlder Alpha1-Preview11b (2021/05/28)
Changes
- Chatbox text fade delay lowered from 30s to 10s
- New asset for construction crane/landing pad
- Updated pulse rifle sounds, animation & balance
- Added flamethrower hit effect
- Slime footstep volume lowered
- Starter Pickaxe item renamed to Iron Pickaxe
- Player can now craft the slightly stronger Steel Pickaxe
Bugfixes
- Underground setpieces will no longer appear on the surface.
- Reduced performance stutters caused by new world gen when running around the map
- Fixed material list calculations not refreshing in facility UI when performing certain actions
- Fixed dropped items no longer showing in world in multiplayer
- Fixed issue causing spam of Can’t Build Here messages when placement fails repeatedly in the same way when an entity is obstructing
- Fixed issue that allowed players to place blocks while hauling a corpse
- Fixed issue that could cause flickering of the pickaxe after respawning
- Fixed issue that could cause an error during shutdown and fail to save the world
- Fixed issue that caused NPCs not to start crafting jobs if they don’t have enough materials to fully fill an order that could be filled partially
- Fixed food storage in facilities not being taken account for “Need food” message
- Fixed an issue that could cause a player to get stuck holding a corpse in multiplayer
- Experimental fix for a communication issue that may be causing players with non-English Windows versions to be unable to host games
Outworlder Alpha1-Preview11c (2021/06/02)
Changes
- Night time now plunges the world into pitch darkness from 6PM to 6AM
- Activity of surface wildlife at nighttime has been increased and will slowly ramp up over the first 3 nights after crash landing
- Added fireflies at night
- Added “toast” notifications at nightfall and daybreak (toast being the term for a small, short lasting message)
- Balance changes: Tree wood yield and animal meat yield lowered. Facilities and furniture now cost more. Drop pods no longer give you iron ore. Coal is now more expensive to make at a campfire.
- Add tabs to facility menu to select between handcrafting and adding work orders
- Fixed an issue that caused NPCs’ stamina to deplete when they were in a squad for a long time
- Research item for the pneumatic drill will now unlock after Power Generation
- Dedicated server config file (server.cfg) now supports adding steam IDs to a list called VerifiedAdmins to automatically grant host privileges to users when they connect
- Update title screen to make port forwarding requirement clearer
- Fatigue display on the colonist list tooltips should now be more accurate
- Pickaxe now sparks when you mine ore or gems.
Bugfixes
- Fixed a bug related to showing a preview ghost for non-placeable items such as ore.
- Fixed noon displaying as 12 AM in weather/time tooltip
- Fixed incorrect value shown for “seconds until night” in time tooltip
- Fixed error that prevented server from resetting and saving progress properly
- Fixed error that would cause a hang when trying to start a new game after returning to the main menu
- Fixed issue that would cause sounds to be loaded and stay allocated on Server
- Fixed NPC and player overlays getting hidden behind terrain
- Fixed NPCs racing to the same bed by making them reserve the bed first
- Fixed some instances of work order material lists not updating on client when viewing the facility menu
- Melee weapons now inflict the correct damage type under the hood (blunt force, slashing, etc)
- Fixed issue that would cause resources like sounds and block graphics not to clean up properly on server reset
- Fixed issue that prevented the Reset Server button from working properly when hosting a game from the client. The button will fully clear the game world and restart with the same settings.
- Fixed resource cleanup issue that would cause server memory usage to balloon over time
- Fixed issue with character dialog that could result in the same message being repeated with different wording
- Fixed issue with Buddy giving his intro dialog later in the game
- Fixed issue that prevented the client from detecting an abrupt connection close and falling back to the main menu
- Fixed several issues related to large feature generation and placement, like allowing set pieces to overlap slightly
- Miscellaneous fixes to creature AI targeting and movement; should result in fewer incidents where creatures remain stuck/immobile for extended periods of time
- Improved gliding on flying critters that used to plummet to the ground
- Fixed an issue that would cause Ammo Manufacturing to show up as a glitched research item that disappears in multiplayer (researching copper ore is sufficient)
Outworlder Alpha1-Preview11d (2021/06/02)
- Hotfix for server crashes
Outworlder Alpha1-Preview11e (2021/06/03)
Changes
- Reduced number of outfits available to players and NPCs when they spawn
- Research bench stack limited to 1
- Removed colored glass until it can be reintroduced with a more flexible crafting/tinting UI
- Reduced range of pistol and shotgun bullets to give them more of an arc
- Added sounds for eggs (idle/activation)
- Flying critters will now coast after their flight state, instead of randomly skydiving
- Game will now skip the lobby when connecting to a game that already started
- Ammo Manufacturing unlocks automatically after researching copper
Bugfixes
- Fix another memory leak causing server memory usage to balloon; and a new uptime record!
- Fixed recipes printing “Black Glass” as the ingredient instead of just Glass
- Fixed issue that would cause researchers to jitter after completing work
- Fixed an issue with world generation resulting in far too many setpieces, sometimes with several of the same setpieces on the same chunk
- Fixed mining spark missing a sound
- Fixed non-moving maggots
- Fixed server player count not updating in the public server browser
- Fixed issue that could cause NPCs to flicker when you removed their bed while they were sleeping
- Fixed issue with Mysteries not completing when reloading a save
- Fixed the command line arguments not allowing spaces in dedicated server names (-name command line parameter)
- Fixed hostile humanoid raids not triggering in multiplayer games
- NPCs no longer pop up and down when their bed is removed while sleeping
Social Media
Can’t get enough Outworlder? Itching for the next colony? Try one of our communities and social media platforms!
Our Discord is our main community hub: If you’re a playtester, you can join and get a special playtester role.
Discord: https://discord.gg/Asntr8e
Our other spaces are regularly updated
Twitter: @playoutworlder
Forums: https://forums.playoutworlder.com/index.php
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Outworlder/
Outworlder Site: https://playoutworlder.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/playoutworlder/