Updates 8-12-2026

Updated and fixed the ledge view math, it now behaves much more consistently on all Z levels.

Monsters can now see down over ledges. Players still cannot see up onto ledges from below, this is coming.

Treetops you aren't standing on once again block your view of areas beyond them, meaning that climbing a tree in the forest may afford you a better vantage point but it does not make you into some kind of an all-seeing tree god.

Fixed a longstanding bug which was blocking hypovolemia from recovering until you lost blood again.

Blood loss now actually affects NPCs who are not in your faction.

Renamed most feral humans. People were treating "feral" like it was any kind of a consistent status, which is not the case. The new and more varied names hopefully better convey the fact that everybody just kind of went apeshit.

"Oversized crow" and "bloated corvid" are now renamed to "carrion bird" and "gluttonous carrion bird".

Cephalopod arms and all types of tails now incur only 80% of the pain of a standard body part when they take damage.

The unseen hunter now regenerates a max of 30 hp/second instead of 40. This amount is (and has always been) reduced by any available light even if it's not enough to fully stop it from regenerating. Previously there was no feedback about this. Now the message will proc less often (to a minimum of a 3% chance) when the creature is healing more slowly, to provide you with some feedback about what is going on.

Fields were using forest monstergroups for their random spawns, leading to things like giant mantises standing in the open waiting to get shot, rather than lurking behind trees waiting for you to walk past. Fields now have their own monstergroups, and while there is some overlap, you should now expect to find more field-appropriate creatures roaming the prairies of New England while the woods are more woodsy.

It is no longer possible to get memory cards by disassembling smartphones. Smartphones don't come with reusable memory cards these days and the phone's internal storage is encrypted in a manner which functionally requires the rest of the phone's hardware to access, it's not something you could just hack into, and certainly not something you could casually slot into another device.

Regional dumps had waaaay too many deep pits and it looked terrifying. Most of them are now shallow, and while shallow and deep pits don't currently join properly, it's still much more obvious that this is not a bottomless pit that just yawned open one day at the dump, and is instead a hole where they put trash.

Tacoma Ranch no longer has hostile monsters in its fields, and the ramp leading down to the cellar now works properly.

Fixed an error message that would pop up when asking the guards at the refugee center about the downed helicopter quest.

Hallucinated creatures will no longer leave bloodstains on the floor when injured.

Dealing more than 15 times a creature's max HP in a single attack will now gib it so hard there won't even be a pulped corpse left.

Zombies now revive with less HP. The amount is still commeasurate with the level of damage to the corpse.

Zombies now come back with less of a speed penalty. The penalty is -20% at damaged, -30% at mangled, -40% at mutilated. Burnt corpses never have a speed penalty, something about fire makes them come back faster in both senses of the word.

Mutant rattlesnakes are a bit more tough and aggressive, and their descriptions have been updated to better describe them.

Zombie necromancers now sometimes repair or merely damage an unpulped corpse when they critfail a revival roll. This is in addition to sometimes accidentally gibbing them.

Zombie necromancers are now less likely to gib themselves when they critfail a revival roll.

Most creatures now leave bones when they rot away.

Tiny dogs can now produce hide. For whatever reason they had none.

Seawater now requires extremely cold air temperatures (around -25C) to freeze. While that is colder than the freezing point of salt water, the ocean is constantly moving and has a huge thermal capacity. As water is cooled by the air, warmer water from below moves up to displace it. In New England, even in Cataclysm conditions, you might see isolated pools of seawater freezing, but at no point can you just walk out onto the Atlantic.

The wretched hatchery's description has long been cited as "trying too hard." I went in and trimmed it way down, removing most of the "disgusting/vile/etc" descriptors which really only served to insist to the reader that the thing is gross. Now it just is what it is and you can decide if it's gross (it is).

Fixed a visual issue with the wretched hatchery possibly acquiring the downed effect and appearing to stand up as it rotates.

Smartphones have far fewer files on them, but can now have photo albums, because everybody got a camera roll.

Smartphones found on zombies will now usually have little if any charge.

Rabbits no longer produce a usable amount of fat when butchered. This is sort of a famous problem with rabbits as a food source.

Restored the platinum grille recipe. This recipe is for a chemistry catalyst, not the thing you wear in your mouth.

Ported a DDA fix to the calcium carbide recipe, which for some reason was making a huge heap of the stuff.

The epicuticle mutation is no longer involved in any molting. It's just skin and is the same no matter what else is going on. Chitin Carapace and Crustacean Carapace still molt, and now Crustacean Carapace does so correctly.

Removed ecology as a primary skill for nearly all of the crafts it was involved in. Ecology is for interacting with living things and the environment, it's not a skill that magically stands in for fabrication just because a craft is "primitive."

Updated many recipe requirements. Fish traps, snares, and nets now use devices, which might be both a way to train these skills and a bit of a pain if you don't have them.

Removed some outdated references to "survival skill."

Removed war darts. These were just javelins by another name.

Throwing sticks no longer stack.

Removed the AXE quality from masonry saws. These items are not suitable for cutting down trees, they are intended to be used with the construction menu (*) for recipes like "remove concrete wall".

Fixed improper encumbrance values on welding masks and goggles. These items no longer inhibit breathing and appropriately blind (or nearly blind) a character who wears them.

@aattss submitted a fix for skill training via construction. It now appropriately scales to your skill level. Constructions in blue text indicate that they will teach you something if you make them.

@Aurora submitted a fix to a Sky Island issue which was throwing an error due to the mi-go slaver id being changed to mi-go abductor.

@Fats420 submitted a fix for supermarkets: permanent markers which were being sold in the store are now always fully charged.

@Federkiel submitted new tiles for the fleshy shambler, freshwater snail, jackstraw set, heavy duty valve, and fog machine. The shambler is really impressive in my opinion!

@Манул and @False Ritchie submitted some updates to the Russian translation.