Rovers are now more configurable than ever! The Rover Update contains a new vehicle, updated driving controls, new methods to use rovers in fun ways, and a ton of performance upgrades!
https://youtu.be/2VtWC38nWOY
UPDATES
VEHICLES
The Small Rover has been added to the game. It is available in the Catalog for 1000 Bytes and prints from the Vehicle Bay for 2 Compound.
Absolute Steering has been implemented for vehicles. Vehicles are now controlled by the movement keys regardless of camera position! (WASD by default on keyboards, and RT / LT and the left thumbstick on controllers). Absolute Steering is enabled by default as of this update, but players may change back to the original camera-directed steering mode by disabling Absolute Steering in the options menu.
The physics model for Rovers has been overhauled.
- Lateral friction has been added to wheels to prevent rampant sliding.
- Drag force has been added to Rover acceleration for a more natural velocity cap and more natural steering at high speeds.
- Acceleration forces now take contact normals into consideration to allow wheels to “roll” over smaller obstacles instead of plowing into them.
- Contextual Button activation have been implemented for vehicles. Certain items attached to the Auxiliary Slots on vehicles can now be activated by pressing the Contextual Buttons (Z / X or RB / LB by default). More items, such as the Drill and Winch, will become usable in this way in future updates.
The Thruster has been revised to work better with Rovers.
- Can now be toggled using the above Contextual Buttons when attached to the Vehicle Auxiliary Slots.
- Applies a more balanced force for better in-air stability.
- Can now accelerate Rovers above their max drive speeds.
The research cost and recipe of the Medium Rover has been adjusted. Its cost is now 3000 Bytes (up from 2000 Bytes) and requires 2 Compound and 2 Aluminum to print.
The built-in batteries on the Medium and Large Rover have been tuned to require more active power sources. The primary reason for the power and recipe changes is to further differentiate the roles of the Medium and Large Rovers from the Small Rover. The Small Rover is intended to be used a light exploration vehicle, while the Medium and Large Rover are meant to serve as heavier haulers and mobile bases.
PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS
We have made a number of improvements to performance on both PC and Xbox, particularly targeting very large save files and multiplayer games. Specific areas of focus include infrastructure refactors and fixes, removing unnecessary animation overhead, reducing the processing cost of deformation, and optimizing older assets that have not been updated in quite some time. This is an ongoing effort that will continue throughout Early Access, but this latest effort should be noticeable for players on the Xbox in particular. Xbox One now utilizes DirectX 12, further improving rendering efficiency on Xbox One and will allow for future rendering quality improvements.
HDR
Xbox One X and Xbox One S consoles can now play the game in HDR. Please calibrate your monitor using the default Xbox One calibration screen prior to launching the game.
OTHER IMPROVEMENTS
- The ‘Flatten Mode’ on the Terrain Tool has been adjusted to provide more consistent results at any angle.
- Reward tables of Discoveries have been updated with new items.
- Additional Quick Help screens have been added to the game to help you after the initial Tutorial experience. Press F1 on your keyboard or the Menu button on your gamepad to check them out!
- Reduced overall game package size (reduced download sizes and load times)
- Upgraded game engine to Unreal 4.18.
BUGFIXES
- Fixed a number of issues with wheel collision which were causing Vehicle wheels to stretch in strange ways. These fixes should greatly reduce the number instances of stretchy wheels.
- [AS-2597] - Fixed a bug where some Fabricators displayed nonfunctional contextual verbs.
- [AS-2599] - Fixed an issue where the 'Use' and 'Examine' inputs prompts did not properly respond to input
- [AS-2622] - Fixed an interaction bug where the 'Exit' prompt displays instead of 'Enter' when one or two seats of a 3-Seat attachment are occupied.
- [AS-2630] - Fixed a bug where a on-functional 'Place’ verb appeared when interacting with another player’s Habitat
- [AS-2637] - Fixed a bug where a player could not operate Winch if another player occupied vehicle it was attached to.
- [AS-2647] - Fixed an intermittent bug where the Client players model did not appear to animate to the Host player while using the Terrain Tool.
- [AS-2675] - Fixed an issue where Vehicles became embedded in certain kinds of terrain when printed from the Vehicle Bay.
- [AS-2689] - The Habitat side slots can once again hold resources and other 1-slot items.
- [AS-2690] - Fixed an annoying bug where the Vehicle Bay became inoperable for the Client player if the Host was using the control panel while the Client was joining the game.
- [AS-2691] - Fixed a bug where a non-functional ‘Enter’ command appeared when hovering over another player’s Drop Pod in Multiplayer.
- [AS-2695] - power cells look like holograms on clients
- [AS-2736] - Fixed a graphical corruption in the power conduit material.
- [AS-2754] - Fixed a minor issue with Research rates showing decimal places off-screen on the control panel.
- [AS-2844] - Fixed an issue where players could infinitely replicate smelted items. Sorry, not sorry.
- Fixed a number of localization bugs in the “Learn More” help screens.
KNOWN ISSUES
- Storm textures showing up as pixelated on the Xbox One
- Audio might become muffled after an Astroneer dies. We are working to resolve this issue.
- The game sometimes looses audio when settings are changed. This can be fixed by deleting your game usersettings.ini
Thanks for reading! Hope everyone has fun driving the new rover! We will talk again around E3 ;)
-jt