Animal/Hunter Interactions:
One of the most requested features since launch. It’s always been particularly jarring and immersion-breaking to see predators standing side-by-side with hunters in their base. Finally, animals and Hunters will now fight against each other (regardless of whether the player nearby). Hunters are now at increased risk in the world, creating a more level playing field for players.
This also means players will not always be at a disadvantage when an animal gets involved during a battle with the hunters. The balance can swing both ways, and hopefully this will lead to deeper combat strategies and unexpected scenarios.
This has been a tricky one to balance, and there will surely be further tweaks needed once players have spent some time with the update (so feedback is welcome). I believe this change goes a long way to making the world feel more alive and dynamic. Hearing distant gunshots in the night, from unknown battles taking place certainly should help add to immersion.
Big-base performance optimizations:
Many players have built huge structures (which I love to see in the Steam screenshots). However these mammoth bases have led to some degraded performance, which sucks.
I’ve made steps to address this by implementing LODs for all base structure pieces and tweaking the lighting as they transition through the LODs. I’m seeing improvements of around +15fps while inside and near these large bases. Thanks to GameEdged for letting me benchmark my tests on his build (featured in the pic above). You can checkout his channel here.
Graphics Color-Grading Overhaul:
The in-game world just became a lot more colorful! I’ve done a full overhaul on the color-grading of the in-game render. This has been bothering me for a long time. The color pallet has always felt washed out and flat, with an overuse of grey and muted tones.
The new color-grading enhances the depth of shadows and boosts the vibrancy of the colors. I’m pretty happy with the result, but please let me know what you guys think.
Other notable changes:
- Fixed bug where item hover-tip would popup without mousing-over the item.
- Increased distance and added distance-lowpass-filtering to gunshot and animal attack sounds (allowing players to hear distant fights).
- Added loot spawns to Workbenches in hunter bases.
- Increase dropped gear expiry timer to 10 minutes in Easy mode.
- Fixed exploit that allowed players to hide under foundations and axe animals to death.
- Mounted floodlights can now be placed on the ground outside the base.
- Fixed exploit that allowed players to spam the craft button in the BCU to craft multiple items without deducting the appropriate power/mass.
- Slightly increased the range of the glowstick.
- Increased the hunter’s turning speed (they needed a small stat boost now they’re up against predators).
- Fixed bug that led to some player’s profiles to crash on load, after the wearable armor update.
- Prolonged the duration that hunter corpses will remain in the world.
- Fixed annoying gaps between windowed walls.
- Reduced how much mass weapon-parts yield.
I know there are lots of issues that need addressing, and missing features needed. The feedback on the forums has been a massive help in prioritizing the issues, as well as some great suggestions and discussion on the future of the project. Thanks so much for all the support, it really means a lot.
As usual, please let me know of any issues or problems with the update. Have a great week!