Scrapmen v0.04 Playtest Update
Thanks to everyone who joined the latest playtest and sent feedback. This update focuses on improving visibility, combat feedback, UI flow, fatigue balance, audio, and general polish.
Main Improvements
- Lighting and visibility improved — the world is now brighter, shadows should feel less harsh, and grass/foliage has been reduced to make players easier to spot.
- Combat feels better — weapons now have recoil, damage now triggers camera shake, hit direction markers have been added, and bullets now have more readable tracer effects.
- Audio has moved to FMOD — audio should now behave spatially with better positional sound.
- Muscle fatigue has been reduced — fatigue values have been lowered, jump fatigue has been reduced further, and recovery has been increased.
- Toggle sprint added — players can now toggle sprint with Left Shift.
- Crouch readability improved — a temporary HUD indicator now shows when crouched.
- Nameplates improved — nameplates now rotate towards the viewing player and use a new friendly/enemy material.
UI and Quality of Life
- Respawn and Abandon War buttons have been switched on the spawn menu.
- Chatbox focus is now automatic after pressing Enter.
- Menus and UIs can now be closed with either an exit button or the Escape key.
- Tooltips now close automatically when opening base or storage UIs.
- Timers now display consistently in MM:SS format.
- Button hover states now update both the button background and text.
Weapons and VFX
- All weapons are now fully loaded when first equipped.
- Firearm visual effects have been overhauled.
- Weapon VFX should now spawn from more appropriate positions.
- Tracers now follow projectiles and use more noticeable smoke rings.
- Pain/damage camera effect has been reduced by 50%.
Balance Changes
- World brightness increased by 10%.
- Grass and foliage density reduced by 33%.
- Grass height reduced by 20%.
- Muscle fatigue values reduced by 20%.
- Jump fatigue reduced by a further 50%.
- Muscle fatigue recovery increased by 20%.
- Walking should now consume less muscle fatigue.
Other Fixes
- Crates are no longer climbable.
- Center Camp should now be rebuildable.
- Fixed the recurring “Bring 0 Building Scrap to Finish Building” tooltip.
- Scrap Bag now displays the correct tooltip.
- Neutral Bases can no longer take damage.
- Fixed various typos throughout.
- “The End ends in x minutes” has been changed to “The Border Skirmish ends in x minutes”.
New Features
- Day / Night Cycle — daytime and night time are both 30 minutes.
- Automatic Night Vision — players with an equipped kit automatically receive night vision between Dusk and Dawn.
- Border Skirmish Phase Updates — Battle Phase is now 50 minutes, Peace Phase has a minimum of 5 minutes and scales with joined players, and End Phase now lasts 5 minutes.
- World Updates — new world lights have been added for extra ambience, along with 2 lore pieces.
Still To Come
- Mouse sensitivity settings are something we want to revisit later.
- Grenade and explosive trajectory indicators are still being considered. We want to find the best way to implement them properly.
For the full changelog, visit:
https://scrapmen.joss-studio.com/v0_04.html