We're running a very short optional beta for this one. It's mainly a bug fixing patch, but the fixes potentially have some far reaching implications and we'd like to be sure we haven't missed anything huge. We'd appreciate any feedback on issues you experience in this beta - if you're on Windows 64 bit and would like to participate in this short beta, read on.
We are looking for more information about a known bug where a leafcutter gets stuck on a plant with an exclamation mark appearing above its head. If this happens to you we would appreciate anything you can tell us or show us (screenshots or videos) about how it happened and if the leafcutter was affected by a status effect at the time (for example confuse caused by a devil’s coach horse).
Additionally we would appreciate it if you could let us know if anything unusual happens with creatures using their abilities. Any freezing, stuck in animations or changes to how it worked before would help. We made a change to something fairly fundamental to do with abilities which is why we are asking for information around them.
The beta code is summertimeants - the same as it has been recently. If you’re unfamiliar with how to activate a Steam beta, here’s how to do it:
- Find Empires of the Undergrowth in your Steam library, right-click on it and choose "Properties"
- Choose the "Betas" tab
- In the box titled "Enter beta access code to unlock private betas", enter summertimeants
- After the "Access code correct" information appears, make sure you've chosen "openbeta" from the "Select the beta you would like to opt into" drop-down menu
- Press close - the game will now update to the beta branch.
Fixes
- Fixed an issue where food buried underground but not part of a cavern would not be labeled as buried and not seen as an outline
- Randomised caverns for leafcutters now produce smaller leaves as so not poke through the surface and are randomly rotated
- Placing a marker on an enemy nest exit whilst your ants are in a different enemy nest will now cause your ants to leave the nest they are in
- Fixed a bug that allowed you to get a refund for a tile upgrade if canceled the same frame it was completed (was easier on low FPS computers)
- Fixed a couple of painting issues on the surface to do with tunnel exits when they are not tunneled out
- Fixed a crash that could occur in formicarium challenge 3 when the hand moved
- Player not selecting a unit option in freeplay will no longer refer to wood ants
- Fixed a crash that could occur on low end hardware
- Tunnel door now correctly stops ants walking through on The Other Foot
- Freeplay maps without a map option now grey out the option in the basic setup
- Fixed an issue for Russian language in the main menu text
- Fixed an issue that could cause creatures to freeze in an animation until the player looks at them
- Fixed a couple of spellings on the freeplay scoreboard
- Fixed an issue where creatures could get stuck in the tunnel exit at a low frame rate
- Fixed an issue that could rarely cause a creature to get stuck in the air when picked up by a praying mantis
- Fixed an issue where the praying mantis could on rare occasions freeze doing nothing
- Fixed some visual underground tile bugs
- Fixed some UI issues with freeplay setup
- Fixed an issue with pathing at the northern end of Basin
- Destructible barriers can no longer be knocked back or affected by other effects
Changes
- Barrier between nests in Basin is no longer destructible if you are not allied with the colony on the other side
- Barriers that are destructible in Basin now appear as pieces of wood rather than stone
- The Hungry Spider level’s uber beach wolf spider can now take more than 6 damage per hit (should be easier to kill with a bite build now)
- Added in notifications explaining how to combat phorid flies in 3.1 and 3.2
- The player is now given a warning that they could lose their rewards if they try and restart a level when rewards are waiting for them in the formicarium
- Quitting or restarting Extremis now gives the player the reward points they had earned up to that point
- Some creatures now cannot be knocked back or forced to flee
- Some more improvement to funnel web performance in freeplay
- Smoothed some of the landscape at the edge of 2.2 and prevented some tiles poking through the sea bed
- Forum link changed to discord and patch notes link updated
- Mole cricket (and uber mole cricket) added to the Battle Arena
- Couple of icon updates for ant species in Battle Arena
- Slave maker ants added to Battle Arena
- Uber mole cricket can now be unlocked for freeplay by completing Excavators (should be retroactive)
- Dropped creatures will now try and drop where they are held rather than the centre of the holding creature