Happy Friday, Sleepers!
We’ve got a juicy update for you this week, with a wide array of fixes and improvements across the board. The main highlights with this update are performance improvements, saving/loading stabilization, and item rarity overhaul.
As far as optimization goes, we’ve done a pass over several backend systems, reducing the overhead of items in the world, and streamlining some scripts to run only when specifically needed. We also fine-tuned lighting layers, meaning that objects which do not need to receive sunlight are much cheaper to render.
Saving and loading has gotten another handful of fixes; many of you were experiencing your bases disappearing when reloading after the last update, which should now be fixed. Unfortunately this means that we need to wipe saves with this update to ensure everyone’s got a clean slate, without corrupt files.
Last but not least, we’ve reworked the way item rarity is calculated. With our new system, spawn rates are much more controllable and reflect item rarities properly. This should result in much more logical dispersion between common and rare items, and seemed to be a great change from our internal testing.
Those are just the highlights; as always find the full Changelog below. We’ve received several crash reports in the week since the last update, which we are actively looking into and working with Unity to track down. We apologize for those of you still experiencing these crashes; if you have not already, please send your crashlogs (located in steamapps/common/PAMELA/) to support @ nvyvestudios.com so we can look into your unique issue.
Have a great weekend, hope you all enjoy the update. Let us know your experience in the comments!
Changelog
Feature
- Added a windowed mode option to the settings screen
Balance
- Hacking bypasses no longer take up inventory space, and are displayed next to upgrade nodes in the inventory, as well as current unspent Compute Cells
- When hacking is successfully completed, the loot menu will automatically open in order to smooth interaction
- Container loot tables are not logarithmically weighted between giving you less and more items, instead of an equal chance at any amount of items
- The amount of benefit consumables give is now properly based of rarity, as well as price. This affects hypos, food, and drink
- Reworked the math behind the loot table for item rarities. Previously ++ items were spawning at a similar rate as their standard counterparts, now they will be logarithmically rarer.
- Default crouch and sprint modes are now set to Hybrid instead of Toggle by default
- Increased the size of the player hitbox as many attacks from NPCS were missing
- Containers now stay open when you've scanned
- When trying to pick up an item that you don’t have room for it will now display the flytext "Insufficient Inventory Space"
Performance Optimization
- Optimized the way lists are referenced in the area of influence of the player, which should increase performance noticeably
- Significantly decreased amount of draw calls and tris in most districts, will noticeably improve framerate
- Optimized the way footsteps are generated, reducing certain frame hitches
- Reduced frame drops when transitioning between zones by sequentially turning on objects rather than all at once
- Optimized animated textures dramatically
- Optimized the Seeker by reducing their geometry by 30%, it was previously at a hardcap limit that split it into two skinned meshes
Fix
- Fixed an issue where items generated by Kiosks and Hydroponics would not be saveable
- Shield Bashing no longer hurts the player
- Ion Cores now show how much energy they have in your inventory
- Solar chargers will now charge based on daylight regardless of whether the player is sleeping in a bed or not.
- Placing an item overtop of another item in the loot menus now swaps items properly like it does in the inventory menu
- Fixed a null reference error that would sometimes come up when linking shield pylons
- Fixed an issue where shield pylons would sometimes not be in their active animation when active
- Fixed issue where containers that were scanned would go back to being yellow after saving and continuing
- Fixed an issue where clicking in certain locations during the load screen would lock up player actions after spawning
- Fixed issue where game would not pause at death, then in subsequent menus the player could still be attacked
- Fixed a duplicate container that was causing issues in Oasis Art Gallery
- Loading screen text now properly fits the size of the loading bar
- Fixed an issue where items saved in the buildable storage container had ever so slightly increased in size
- Fixed an issue where certain image effects were not triggering properly, specifically when being hit, when the player dies, and when the player is at low health
- Fixed issue where containers would randomly be opened when you hadn't interacted with them
- Fixed an issue where the XP would sometimes not sync properly with the displayed XP
- Fixed an issue where Augment Keys would have discrepancies in their naming on Flytext, Datapads, and Items.
- Removed negatively scaled colliders from some menus that was causing errors
- Fixed an issue where if you paused while in the inventory using a controller it would unlock the right stick improperly
- Fixed a null reference error being thrown by the security containment field
- Fixed an issue where the Sonic Emitter would sometimes disappear from the inventory on load
- Fixed issue where observers would teleport to world origin point then travel really fast to where they were supposed to be
- IVG scanner sprite will no longer decrease in resolution when main world texture resolution is decreased, it became very low res
- Fixed a floating spawn point in Oasis
- Observer central engine no longer keeps spinning after death
- Fixed issue where sometimes dying from a fall would cripple your legs on respawn
- Solar charger now properly uses its own unique icon
- VISR now phases in rather than fade, and time is displayed in 24 hour clock
- Fixed one last piece of floating trash in Origin Station Aurora
- Fixed a zfighting issue with some glass at the entrance to Origin Station
- Fixed an issue where the elevator menu in ARK Medical flickers on and off in certain distances
- Build menu now properly phases in rather than fading in
- Ion Core items now display correct % remaining when in inventory