A new major update is now available for Primal Carnage: Extinction on Steam.
We've been hard at work the last few months, optimizing and improving things ahead of returning to PlayStation development this summer. This update has many features and tweaks requested by the community, ones we hope to bring across to console later as well.
Major changes include overhauling the flying classes, a new way to "Colourize" dino skins, and proper team shuffle when playing in ranked. Read on for more highlights, or scroll down to the bottom for the truly epic full changelog...
New Secondary Ability:
TUPA DIVEBOMB
Tupandactylus finally has a unique secondary ability... (It only took 7 years!)
Divebomb is a new manually triggered ability that can be performed while in flight, complementing the passive ram attack that Tupa has by providing an alternative with more control.
Gain height then tap alt-fire to initiate a divebomb, rocketing ahead in a downwards arc for up to 1.5 seconds. You can also turn left and right during this speed boost. Divebombing while at high altitude is useful as a dodge move, and it can be a good way of quickly landing on the ground. However, it does have offensive capability as well.
If a Tupa hits the ground while their divebomb ability is active, they will trigger a ground pound...
This radial shockwave deals moderate AOE damage and knockback. Anyone standing directly underneath will receive severe damage. Since a ground pound causes you to land, the Tupa can choose to cancel it before landing by tapping alt-fire again (if they are still high enough in the air).
One extra tweak for Tupa is your roar now also regenerates a chunk of stamina!
Updated Mechanic:
Pteranodon Grab Ready-up
For a long time there's been an unintentional learning curve with grabbing people as the Pteranodon. It required precise timing, initiating the grab at the right distance, and guessing how long after that point in the animation your feet would be "allowed" to latch onto a target. This made using the class's key ability overly fiddly and annoying, especially with poor ping.
This update extends Ptera's grab ability with a "ready up" option. In addition to just tapping grab when near someone, you can now also anticipate the grab by holding the secondary attack button down. While doing this your flight stance changes, claws extended in front of you, ready to grab on.
Readying up a grab makes it much easier to successfully execute the attack, but will rapidly drain your stamina. This means it's only doable for just over a second.
We'd like to say a special thanks to community animator Mr. Troodon for helping us create these new abilities for our flying classes!
Optimizations
COOKING BETTER
This update we rolled out a big change in how we package PCE's game files. Previously we shipped things in a much looser way, which meant the game took up more space than it needed to. The new method "cooks" all of the files down into compressed packages, reducing the install footprint and making things more efficient overall.
Here's some numbers:
Average install size, Version 2.7.5 ~31 GB
New install size, Version 2.8.0 ~10 GB
That's a saving of around 20 gigabytes! You should see faster loading times, with booting up the game being much quicker. Future updates will be greatly reduced in filesize as well.
Changes to Custom Map Support
The only downside to the new cooking process is that custom maps may no longer be 100% compatible with the game. That said, we will be keeping the option to subscribe to Workshop maps available and would still love to see more new levels submitted.
We are exploring the option of adding a Mapmakers Test Beta, where creators can continue play-testing custom levels. Keep in mind that some assets may not match exactly as of the next SDK release (coming soon).
We're already working with a handful of community creators to add more maps this year, and look forward to seeing what ideas people come up with for new levels in future.
Changes for Server Operators
As part of the new content optimizations, dedicated server binaries are no longer shipped with the game itself. This means hosting is a little more complicated. Community server operators need to have the official PCE Dedicated Server tool installed.
The process is the same as most other games on Steam that have a dedicated server tool.
Just follow these steps:
- Create a new folder on any place you want
- Download steamcmd from here and extract it in that folder.
- Then double click "steamcmd"
- Type: login anonymous
- Press Enter
- Type: app_update 336400 validate
- -> Done!
After this you can now create a simple batch file to run your server.
For more support, check the official discord.
GENERAL GAMEPLAY CHANGES
Updated Mechanic:
Oviraptor Roar Enhancement
As a refresher - the roar ability for Oviraptor has previously let it scent out humans, revealing the outlines of enemies (to itself). We have expanded on this over time, giving Oviraptor the power to mark mines for teammates, and its ability has now been upgraded once more!
In addition to being able to mark every type of throwable now, Oviraptor's strong sense of smell can sniff out weaker humans. Enemies with good health appear in shades of grey, weaker damaged humans stand out with bold red outlines when scented.
This allows Oviraptor to focus on specific targets that might be less of a threat, useful for a weaker predator that is geared around ambushing.
New Team Shuffle
This update introduces the second part of re-engineering "rounds" for PCE. When a brand new map is loaded by the server, teams will now be shuffled so that players are re-sorted instead of maintaining the exact same team composition.
It was never our intent for teams to stay locked in place unchanging from match to match, which was a side effect of the previous update. We apologize for things being a little monotonous lately.
Team tracking is still enabled and will ensure players are swapped sides after "Round 1," but this functionality is now confined to the current map and is no longer persistent between matches. We'll be monitoring how the changes play out and keep tweaking the systems.
Tyrant Availability
Until now, when you killed a Tyrant in team deathmatch it was possible they'd be back in just a few seconds to fight you again. This often led to the same player dominating an entire match...
To combat this, there is now a cooldown in place after you lose your slot as a Tyrant in both GTTC and TDM. The same player cannot select Tyrant again after dying for a period of time. This immediately frees up that Tyrant slot for other players to have a chance as Rex / Spino / Acro, and means humans don't have to deal with the same Tyrant right away after having defeated them.
There are other more radical changes being discussed for Tyrants, which may be headed for the game in the not too distant future. Watch this space.
Spawn System Update
Having observed the results of last year's spawn system changes for several months, we decided to revert a core element we believe was responsible for what has been called "the ball of death."
Previously, the spawn system would ensure Tyrants spawned as far away as possible from humans, and vice versa. It led to humans always appearing way across the map from dinosaurs.
This spawn weighting is now removed, which has reduced the chance of allies appearing right next to each other. It still avoids placing humans next to dinosaurs, but no longer prioritizes being max distance from them, and will no longer deliberately attempt to put allies next to each other in TDM.
We have also expanded the check radius for whether an enemy is near a spawnpoint when the game decides where to place you. We feel these tweaks should greatly improve the moment to moment experience, but will be watching closely to see how they play out.
Feature Update:
COLOURIZING
We received a lot of positive feedback relating to the dinosaur colour adjuster added in the January update, but definitely heard loud and clear that the functionality was too limited and not really noticeable on certain skins. For this update, we have worked hard to totally overhaul this feature into something much more advanced...
NEW Colourizer Menu
This is a new feature of the customization area. In the Colourizer, you can now select up to 4 different colours to mix together to radically influence the look of a skin.
Specific colour buckets are used when colourizing instead of simply using a sliding scale. Each input of the Colourizer corresponds to a tonal range in the dinosaur's skin texture, differentiated from light to dark. You can equip up to 4 custom colours in different combinations when colourizing.
Try experimenting with different ratios for each layer to find the perfect blend. Layers stack on top of eachother, with the sliders controlling how much influence each layer has. As an example, to see more of Layer 2 you may need to reduce the amount of Layer 3.
With a starter palette of 32 different shades there are approximately 1,048,576 possible colour combinations when using the new Colourizer menu!
As this is part of the game's crafting system, the Colourizer requires special paint tools...
NEW Paint Tools
A limitation of the previous colour changer was that you would have to redo your custom colors every time you swapped skins out. To fix this problem, we have extended the economy/crafting systems to support Colourized Skins as a way to save your results.
Paint Buckets are a new crafting tool used when colourizing skins. These are available at a low price in-store (check out the new Tools tab). They can also be acquired as regular drops in game, and are part of both level-up awards and challenge completion bundles.
These tools are single use items which are consumed when a Colourized Skin is saved, so be certain you have the perfect combo before hitting Save Changes!
You can preview what a skin will look like with different colours even if you haven't acquired any tools. Just open the Colourizer Menu in customization, every colour is available to preview with. However, if you don't have the required tools (unobtained paint buckets are marked Not Owned) you won't be able to save it.
Finally, to craft your Colourized Skin you will need to equip a Paint Mixer.
At the end, you have a personal Colourized Skin, tailored exactly to your liking. Right now you can only colourize a skin once, but removing custom colours and recolouring recolours are on our to-do list for future updates.
(Please note that as they are Personal quality, colourized skins are non-tradable and non-marketable).
(While almost all dino skins support colourization, there are exceptions. Default items and skins that do not use the standard overlay system are unsupported).
VISUAL UPGRADES
In addition to the new Colourizer setup, we have overhauled many of our master shaders, including materials for humans, dinosaurs, weapons and more! Drink it in...
New Master Dinosaur & Flyer Shaders
Skin now has more advanced subsurface scattering and new roughness properties, reacting more realistically to the light. New eye shading allows for a greater range of colour tinting and for collar eye glow to be changed.
New Master Human Shader
Human skin shading is more realistic, with better specular highlights, light scattered naturally throughout the surface, and ambient reflectivity from certain angles. Hair shading is also improved to have more of a "sheen" to it on some characters.
New Master Weapon Shader
The biggest update is perhaps the new shading model for guns. Previously there was a sort of "brushed metal" effect that overpowered things when looking at bright lights. This has now been removed, resulting in much smoother shading across all weapons with nice highlights and subtle reflections (see the environment colour reflected on your gun!).
And the cherry on top - weapons now receive shadows if you have dynamic shadows enabled...
Some weapons even received new texture masks and resolution boosts to their base textures, including ones which never had "blank bases" before. These will be included in the next SDK release.
Lighting Updates
There have been game-wide improvements to lighting and post processing, with several maps featuring new color grading. Bloom is now more present, new environmental effects have been added and we have made an effort to optimize the maps during this process as well.
Elsewhere, there are visual flourishes such as dynamic lights emitting from spitter puddles and new projectile light effects.
MARSH MAKEOVER
Poisoned by Atrium C, half of the map is now decaying, making for a striking visual. The layout and lighting of the map has also been completely overhauled.
We hope that you enjoy this new version of an old classic!
SOUND OVERHAULS
As part of our ongoing effort to optimize the game, some of our guns have been reworked with a new sound system. Instead of spitting out dozens of separate sound cues a second, automatic weapons now use a more efficient looping setup. Previously, these guns were overwhelming the audio engine and eating up every available sound slot, essentially "stealing the voices" of other sounds in the world.
While adapting the AR, M4 and SMGs to work with this new system, their actual weapon firing sounds have also received some polishing up. The rifles in particular have a lot more punch!
The dinosaurs have received some audio tweaks here and there as well. Tupa features updated roars and the flyers both have new attack calls, plus incidental chirps and new wind sounds when flying at high speed. Elsewhere, you'll no longer hear Spinosaurus growls when attacking as Tyrannosaurus.
Store Event:
FLYER SEASON
In celebration of Tupa getting its new special ability, we're adding a collection of new Flyer items today! These brand new cosmetics include several new model mutations, a variety of new skins for both Ptera and Tupa, plus a selection of new free drops for the flying classes!
(All these and more available now!)
In addition to all the new content, we're also running a special Flyer-themed sale in-store. Grab dozens of classic skins, mutations and taunts for both Ptera and Tupa at a seriously low price!
Selectable In-Game Avatars
We've added an option to customize your in-game avatar using some of the sprays in-game by clicking the empty box near your name on the main menu. These images show up on the your profile card and the in-game spectator panel / kill cam.
You have 6 default avatar images to choose from in your inventory. More avatars will be added in future as a new type of random drop.
Player Profile
There is a new option on the main menu to "View ID Card" - this is your Player Profile, which displays data such as how much EXP exactly remains until your next level. This is a feature we will be expanding on greatly in future updates.
FULL CHANGELOG
GENERAL GAMEPLAY
- Teams are now shuffled when swapping to a brand new map
- Optimizations to level transitions, should mean quicker loading times and less crashing when going from match to match
- Spawn system updates:
- increased minimum required "safezone" when selecting a spawn point (how far enemies need to be from it for spawning to be desirable)
- fixed spawns artificially clumping members of the same team together
- removed the "Tyrant test" for spawn point weighting
- GTTC Updates:
- Control point capture speed is now halved if a dinosaur is standing on the control point.
- Reduced wave respawn time from 17 seconds to 12 secs
- Reduced default round time from 15 minutes to 6 minutes
- Fixed Bruisers not being able to spawn for 60+ seconds at the start of a match
- SURVIVAL: Prices of items at vending machines are now multiplied every 10 waves (2x, 3x, etc.)
- Tyrants now have a timout after death before the same player can select them again
- Added a 7 second timer when clicking the Change Class menu option in ranked modes, to prevent players from instantly suiciding in combat.
- Removed forced spawn for dinosaurs in Freeroam mode
- Fixed tyrant limits being active in Freeroam mode
DINOSAUR CHANGES
- Weapons do 25% less damage to all dinos during their roar animation
- Dinosaurs are slightly weaker to bullet damage when they are on fire
- Reduced duration of "afterburn" from various sources from 5 secs to 2.5 secs
- Waterfalls / leaks can extinguish dinos
- NEW Tupa secondary: DIVEBOMB
- Use alt fire to get a burst of extreme downward velocity in midair
- Divebomb into a radial ground pound that deals low damage, high knockback
- Cannot be activated unless you are high enough off the ground.
- Tupa roar changes:
- marking lasts for half as long compared to Ptera
- roar instantly restores a chunk of its stamina
- secondary attack take less stamina while roar is active
- secondary attack divebomb lasts 25% longer while active
- Lowered minimum speed required for auto-charging as Tupa
- Pteranodon Changes:
- New setup for Ptera grabbing - hold button down and if close enough to target you grab
- Ptera can no longer grab when flying too slow (i.e. hovering)
- Ptera can no longer fly downwards while holding a grabbed victim
- Ptera now has a brief delay after grabbing a human before stamina drain starts
- Stamina is drained heavily while readying up a grab as Ptera
- Stamina cost of holding someone you've picked up is now 50% less.
- 30% faster stamina regeneratiion for Ptera
- Reduced grab radius for ptera
- Minor increase to Ptera diving speed
- Flyers now recover stamina faster while they're on the ground
- Adjustments to Flyer movement, animation blends and turn rates
- Flyers now flap less often when flying slowly
- Re-positioned Flyer shoulder cam
- Pachy Changes:
- Reduced walk speed of Pachy slightly
- Pachy now moves slower when bracing
- Pachy bracing now has more noticeable stamina drain
- Increased health received by grazing as Pachy from 60 to 75/sec
- Attempt at making Pachy float less off the ground
- Reduced blend time on Pachy slide and increased slide damage radius
- Fixed the Pachy being unable to ram people if you slide while charging, then continue to charge.
- Stopped bruisers and tyrants colliding with each other for less frustration
- Bruisers now only lose half of their stamina when stepping on gas mines
- Fixed randomization being applied incorrectly when Carno or Pachy charged into people -now properly applies random momentum direction during charge hits.
- Added an extra +40 bonus health restored for all damage dealt when using Carno's roar ability
- Removed a neck bone from the Carno's weakspot calculation
- Ceratosaurus can now use its tail whip while walking
- Increased Cerato roar duration from 20 to 25 seconds
- Increased Cerato tailswipe cooldown from 0.9 to 1.1 seconds
- Cerato roar changes:
- Now has faster speed and acceleration while roar is active
- Bite hits after roaring are now guaranteed to always restore stamina, regardless of whether the target has stamina left to "steal"
- Reduced roar effect duration of Cerato from 25 to 20
- Reduced roar cooldown timer from 55 to 45
- Increased movement speed of Spitters
- Increased Dilo spit blind duration: minimum from 1.8 to 2.15 secs, maximum from 4 to 4.5 secs
- Fixed charged spit collisions so that they don't phase through certain objects / force fields
- Cryo drool now appears only after spitting, persists for 60 seconds
- Spitter pools now light up the world
- Tyrants can now sprint while netted
- Tyrants can no longer hold down primary fire to automatically continue biting repeatedly
- Fixed an issue where Tyrant bites would sometimes not pick a player up but do a "fake bite" instead
- Fixed: Tyrants being able to bite during net escape animation
- Acro now does its stomp attack a little faster than before
- Extended camera shake effect for Tyrant roars to Acro and Spino
- Added new Spino bite animation / attack setup:
- has head tilting to the side for more horizontal reach
- requires more specific timing, jaws must close shut on target
- features a new Out portion for missed bites (SNAP!)
- Increased blinding duration for spit (there is now a short delay before spit overlay starts to fade out)
- Adjusted charged spit arc indicator to be more accurate
- Slightly faster charged spit travel speed
- Reduced distance for raptor claw slash attacks
- Updated oviraptor attack animation to have more of a "pecking" motion
- Various animation blending adjustments to make dinosaur attacks look smoother
- Oviraptor roar changes:
- roar now marks healthy enemies in subtle gray outlines
- low health enemies appear bold red
- roar also highlights dynamite now
- flyer marking no longer "overwrites" oviraptor's own vision mode
- Changed how dinosaur collar eye glow is handled, added collar eye glow for Pachy
- Updated Gurneyi and Aerosteon mutation models to improve compatibility
HUMAN CHANGES
- Humans now have 40% less time to wait before their stamina starts regenerating
- Reduced health of Pyro from 185 to 180
- Removed the Deagle from Pathfinder (default secondary is now standard "MK" pistol)
- Halved respawn timers for in-world health & ammo pickups
- Fixed not being able to interrupt reload / fire animations
- Disabled weapon sway when scoped in
- Slight reduction to sniper rifle scoped firerate
- Sniper rifle now does guaranteed quad damage on long range headshots (smaller dinos only)
- Updated sniper rifle scope material to have more noticeable reflection when walking around
- Sniper rifle scope lens is now highly reflective in third person
- Assault rifle damage now drops off slower over distance
- Extended max damage distance of assault rifle bullets
- Small boost to dual pistols effectiveness over distance
- Simplified shotgun crosshairs
- Spaz-12: max damage distance extended from 3300 to 4096 units
- Spaz-12: increased per pellet damage from 20 to 24
- Spaz-12: quicker damage falloff
- Spaz-12: reduced damage at long range from 30% power to 10%
- Shotgun: increased per pellet damage from 30 to 32
- Shotgun: increased max damage distance from 3500 to 4400 units
- Shotgun: much quicker damage falloff, reduced damage at max range from 30% power to 10%
- Double Barrel: increased per-pellet damage from 38 to 40
- Double Barrel: reduced spread when firing single shot
- Double Barrel: damage falloff curve is now less rapid
- Increased amount given back for double barrel shotgun and flamesaw when picking up ammo
- Converted acid firepools now deal 25 damage, instead of only 7
- Reduced assault rifle grenade max flight time from 3 seconds to 2
- Reduced maximum rocket bounces from 3 to 2
- Flamethrower firejet now goes through more targets (max 8)
- Increased afterburn damage per tick from 5 to 7 for flaregun, from 8 to 9 for flamethrower
- Added new first person reloading animation + reload sound for the M4 carbine
- Minor fixes for a few 1st person weapon animations
- Fixed pathfinder 3rd person movement animations being too slow
- Fixed sniper rifle 3P reload anims not playing
- Fixed chainsawing animation not appearing in 3P
- Fixed netgun 3P "fire animation" playing too quickly
- Increased force feedback from firing guns, rumble amount is now balanced between both sides
- Sped up assault cannon & tranq rifle heavy melee
- Fixed you can do heavy melee while scoped
- Fixed an exploit where heavy melee could be used to fire ridiculously fast
- Fixed: you can continue shooting while taunting when holding the button
MAP CHANGES
- Major map optimizations to: GTTC Downpour, GTTC Docks, ForestChasm, UtilityBase, Airbase, Transfer, TheFalls
- PC-Marsh:
- Major overhaul to level layout, adding more differences in elevation and extra cover
- Completely reworked lighting, fog and color grading
- Added a "dead half" of the map that has been poisoned by pollution
- Converted static water into interactive water volumes
- Collision and exploit fixes
- GTTC-Docks:
- 2x cooldown speed on primary capture points (uncapping)
- Adjusted spawn point locations, added more tyrant spawns
- Placed more cover and water around the map
- GTTC-Falls:
- Adjusted spawnpoint placement, moved Tyrant spawns outside of the dome
- Added more cover and adjusted sight-lines to final objective
- Placed additional healing corpses throughout the map
- GTTC-Ruthless:
- Added more foliage cover and tried to direct humans better to the caves
- Sprinkled various types of flowers at different elevations
- GTTC-Downpour:
- Updated & optimized lighting
- Placed more cover on the way to the final objective
- Painted lots of new types of flowers to denote different map zones
- PC-Docks:
- Updated Docks with new fog settings and color grading
- Sand is now more vibrant on Docks, added more details to the map
- Added some water troughs around Docks for dinos to extinguish themselves
- Resolved some human exploit locations (climbable boxes)
- Fixed annoying trees blocking the camera
- UtilityBase:
- Fixed a collision issue in the Ubase central building
- Added new foliage and map debris details
- Fixed missing tree shadows
- Fixed walls and gates not having correct positions / heights on UtilityBase Snow
- Other:
- PC-Borealis: fixed missing ambient alarm sounds of Borealis interior building
- PC-DeadTide: fixed a tyrant collision problem zone
- PC-ForestChasmSnow: fixed a corpse that was under the map
- FR-Valley: rebuilt and optimized level lighting
- PC-Waterlogged: collision fixes, lightning and level optimizations
- Swapped winter testing map for standard basic testing map
- Updated basic test level with new lighting, latest pawns, less weird collisions
- Added new foliage assets, even more optimized grass
- Reworked one of the main road scaffolding ramps on VisitorCenter to help the AI
MENU / UI CHANGES
- Added player ID card to main menu that shows remaining EXP to next rank
- Added customizable avatars for player ID / spectator cam (click image next to your name on the main menu to change)
- Added a new Tools tab to the in-game store for viewing crafting items
- Fixed gifts still doing the christmas opening sound
- Fixed skin icon border colour in spectator module
- Fixed an incorrect item description (we had two coastal pteras)
- Fixed a few typos
VISUAL CHANGES
- Updated generic blood splatter particle effect
- Optimizations to flamethrower and impact particles
- Updated the upgraded flamethrower effect in Survival mode
- Fixed an issue where rain splashes were visible through solid walls, improved rain splash fx
- Game-wide post processing tweaks:
- adjusted bloom threshold and intensity, more objects now catch the light
- color grading style updates on various maps including Docks, Ubase, TheFalls, Marsh
- added lens dirt effect to sun flares
- increased contrast levels
- NEW master shaders for humans, weapons and dinosaurs
- new specular lighting features
- environment colour is now reflected on weapons more vividly
- first person weapon models now receive dynamic shadows (if they are turned on)
SOUND CHANGES
- Reduced default volume level of the game overall
- Added a little beeping noise to timed frag grenades
- Added new looping weapon sounds for Trapper SMGs, M4 carbine and assault rifle
- Adjusted fireloop sound for flamethrower, can hear more clearly in 3rd person as well
- Optimizations to dual pistol and shotgun sounds
- Updated Tupa sound set
- Added some new Ovi, Rex sounds
- Added sounds to Dilo & Cryo spit charging and spit idle animations
- Increased audible radius of idle breathing sounds for several dinosaurs
- Fixed the in-air sound of launcher grenades looping for a while after they blow up
OTHER CHANGES
- Fixed controller analog stick deadzones defaulting to zero
- Fixed server log spam & stats writing that may have affected performance
- Removed a couple of specific debug console commands that were being exploited
- Fixed current round not being displayed on HUD
- Deprecated running P2P servers with Steam Sockets
- Started fixing issues when playing matches using the Host Game feature:
- Fixed Pachy drift takes no stamina
- Fixed various dino melee attacks that weren't dealing damage
- Fixed outlines flickering on all people in the server