Alpha Version 0.3.8a Update Released

0.3.8 has arrived! This monster update tackles a load of quality of life and bug fixes in addition to a bunch of system upgrades which improve gameplay and performance.

Beware of the Bayou! Prehistoric predators lurk amongst the thicket. One mis-step and you could be on the receiving end of a lethal strike from a hunting crocodile. Running away into the water is not much safer. Crocodiles are excellent swimmers and will drag you under the surface with ease. You have been warned.

In addition to new wildlife AI, the ever threatening Infected have received a healthy update to their combat behaviour. Infected and now faster and smarter. You have been warned… again.

Take a look at the updated HUD. Icons have been rearranged for usability and comfort. Elements of the inventory have received an update too to make your inventory management as smooth as possible.

Amy has something to say! New facial animations for the game’s current protagonist along Sen’s questline are in with new voice recordings.

Developer Comment:
It would be advisable to start a fresh game as some mechanics may be bugged if using out of date game saves.

New Power & UV System

• Added a new power system. Some locations that can be used as a player base have a power system that can be powered by a 12v vehicle battery.
• Car Battery Chargers now operate like placeable workstations. Place the charger on the ground and press [F] to add a battery. Holding [F] allows you to pick the charger up. A green light will show when the battery is fully charged.
• Added UV lamps to some locations that can be claimed by players. When powered, these will apply 10% damage every second to an Infected caught in the rays.
• Added UV lights around safe camps.

Player

• Low Morale no longer stops the character from running. Morale now reduces Stamina regeneration and increases Stamina and Energy drain by up to a maximum of 8x.
• When dying in either the Survivor or Nomad scenarios, the player will now spawn at the relevant starting camp unless a respawn point has been placed (e.g. a tent or sleeping bag).
• Added prologue catch-up story text to the Driftwood start scenario which explains how the protagonist arrived on the island.
• Looting containers in safe-zones will now display an icon to show that taking the items will be stealing and will reduce integrity if taken.
• Added functionality to allow items to be picked up in safe-zones if the player has permission to take them. This includes items such as outfits, soap, the machete at survivor camp etc.
• Added vehicle repair to the action wheel. Consume a small vehicle repair kit, 50% of a medium kit or 25% of a large kit to fully repair the vehicle. This does not repair vehicle parts, rather the vehicle itself.
• New Skill System rework. Includes new pop-up UI visuals as the player levels up. Includes improved methods of calculating XP. New inventory UI tab to show progression coming soon.
• Implemented improved bug reporting system. Uses Trello to store data which gives the player more features to report bugs (big thank you to Immortal Hand Studio for this).
• New shortcut system to replace ‘5 and 6’ hotkeys that used to consume bandages and health kits.
  • - Assign items to hotkey slots in the inventory.
  • - Drag and drop items to create shortcuts
  • -Right click to clear the shortcut.

• Dying will now penalize the player by spawning them with half hunger, hydration and energy.
  
• Disabled movement camera shake completely due to shaky camera issues.
  
• Added a vignette to the player camera when stamina is low.
  
• Heavy breathing sounds will now not start until below 50% stamina.
  
• Updated stamina VFX, the effect will start at 20% stamina and will get more intense the lower the stamina gets.
  
• Amy now has voice over (by Nicole Templeton) and facial animations. Applies to Sen's quests at the moment.
  

UI

• Weapon HUD now shows current weapon damage by shading the damage percentage in red.
• Updated player HUD: moved status icons under the player vitals and added player light source icon.
• When hovering over melee weapons in the inventory, statistics about the weapon are shown and can be compared to the currently equipped melee weapon.
• Updated horse HUD.
• Updated vehicle HUD.
• Added option to close campfire radial menus.

Weapons

• Increased range of improvised weapons.
• Re-scaled improvised weapons to a more reasonable size and adjusted their melee ranges accordingly.
• Players can now harvest with a machete. Bladed weapons will harvest items like nettles, berry bushes, bushes and saplings while increasing the amount harvested dependent on the weapon.
• Improved detection issues when harvesting foliage, particularly thinner trees.

Player Lights & Nightvision

• Added a new light source icon that displays the type of light and its condition to the HUD.
• Increased the distance the flashlight will illuminate as well as doubled the brightness.
• Improved the overall flashlight and NVG functionality.
• Reduced brightness of chemlight.
• Updated NVG visuals to be more effective at night and in low light conditions.
• NVGs will no longer lose condition when not enabled.

Quests

• Rifle will no longer spawn in Sen’s safe, added extra pistol ammo and other bits.

Items & Crafting

• Sleeping bags and Tactical Tents now have a placement and spawn cool down timer of 5 minutes. Upon placing or spawning at a sleeping bag or tent you will have to wait 5 minutes before spawn at this location.
• Crafting soap will now give you five bars per craft instead of one.
• Added a Shredder Recycle Machine a.k.a "Xhredder". Place items in the inventory and turn it on from the wheel menu.
• Scaffolding kits are now droppable and will not be destroyed.
• Lockpick kits now only require scrap metal, but now also need a Metal File tool as a requirement to craft.
• New Improvised Backpack added. Not as good as the Crafted Leather Backpack, but requires less resources.
• Player made Horse Trough and Hitch are now a single system. Craft a Hitch and Feed from a workbench and place to hitch a horse and add food to the trough.
• Items in traders stock list will now display the quality type on the icon.
• Replaced loot item sparkles with proximity icons.
• Balanced spawn rate for all consumables. Fruit, vegetables and tinned foods increase vitals a lot less. Cooked items typically provide much higher replenishment.
• Increased the chance of getting pipes from scrap piles and lootable machines.
• High tier outfits have been added to locked military loot crates.

New Items:

• New craftable recipe: Natural Glue.
• New craftable recipe: Duct Tape.

Rebalanced Items:

• Medium Med Kits - 100 Health, 100 Wellness, no effect to hunger and hydration over 60 seconds and stops bleeding.
• Improvised Med Kits - 100 Health, 100 Wellness, - 25% hunger and hydration over 120 seconds and does not stop bleeding.
• Healing Herbs - 10% Health, 5% hunger and hydration, 37kj energy over 60 seconds.
• Nettles - 1% hunger and hydration, 37kj energy over 120 seconds.
• Crafting cost for "Improvised Med Kits" now costs 1x alcohol, 1x gauze pack, 1x blood bag, 1x sewing kit .
• Beeswax and honeycomb slightly reduced hunger and wellness replenishment.

Looting & Harvesting

• Added bee hives. Will produce honey and wax daily at 4x the rate of a wild nests. Bees are also friendly and will not attack the player.
• Birds' nests now provide between 3 - 12 feathers, 2 - 6 sticks and 1 - 3 eggs.
• Campfire now provides both ash and charcoal.
• Pine trees can now be harvested.
• Trees and plants have a chance of giving Sap when harvesting them.
• Items received from looting containers and from loot spawners have been rebalanced.
• Reduced quality of harvestable resources from trees i.e.logs.

NPCs

• Aggressive Crocodiles added to the Bayou.
• Improved navigation for wandering NPCs in Backwater Beacon
• Updated appearance of two old men and children.
• Animals can no longer sometimes be killed in one shot.
• Added facial animations for Sheriff Sen.
• Added additional character to Nomad Camp who will provide quests and rewards from the nearby noticeboard.
• Added new black smith trader in Backwater Beacon stables.
• Updated Brendan, Jess and Leilani's models.
• Improved Infected melee and movement during combat.
• Minimum infected height slightly increased.
• Added new Stage 1 Infected. They will spot you faster but can be safely headshot without the risk of exploding spores.
• Improved infected feet clipping into the ground.
• Increased infected footstep volume.
• New hazmat enemies will defend the updated airfield.

Safe-zones & Camps

• Nomad camp now has a job board.
• Major safe-zones (e.g. Backwater Beacon) now auto-holster weapons on entry.

Vehicles

• Added vehicle damage when colliding with objects at speed.
• Ground rocks and branches no longer collide with vehicles making it easier to get around off road.
• Driveable vehicle spawns reduced.

Environment

• All pickable locked doors above stores and attics are now lvl 0 locks.
• All garden sheds now have lootable chests and items.
• Added building above Hanouten 711.
• Updated sand/beach and dirt textures.
• Updated visuals at the boathouse near the Nomad camp.
• Added new location Tammerlane & Daughter Gas Station between supermarket and Orlings & Son.
• Hanouten Lighthouse is now open with its basic interior complete
• House interiors are now a lot darker and create more of an atmosphere.
• Sen's vehicle has been overhauled with updated textures. This is the start of a vehicle texture overhaul across the game.
• Added trash scattered on streets.
• Improved static vehicle shaders.
• Adjusted collision on rocks scattered along shorelines.
• Ground mist added to Bayou surroundings.
• Added audible radios. In the future, they will play Blackout FM radio.
• Updated Nomad Camp surroundings with additional fencing and beach updates with pathing.
• Updated boathouse on Garnet Lake just behind Backwater Beacon.
• Added sound effects to the water's edge of oceans and lakes.
• Updated materials on building walls and basements.
• Added shutters to small houses in Hanouten.

Performance

• Optimised tree materials being very expensive.
• Optimised buildings above stores and boat houses.
• Reduced foliage density in fields with tall grass.
• Improved performance on static lanterns around the world.
• Updated flying birds that stay in the sky to address the cost of AI controlled bird performance.
• Performance improvements made to the character to reduce the amount of data being processed every frame by the CPU.
• Improved performance of the weather system which runs every frame.

Fixes

• Fixed Player being able to climb over horse trade doors and climb up water containers behind Brenden.
• Fixed Infected Nests. Nest spawners will now produce infected continuously until burned.
• Fixed loot spawner at Liam’s Garage regenerating loot as you leave the area and come back.
• Fixed vehicles getting spawned on top of each other when loading a saved game.
• Fixed stealing being applied to player owned containers like the vehicle and tent inventories.
• Fixed stealing check being bypassed by using Take All or right-click on items.
• Fixed character wielding weapons after eating, drinking, picking up and dismounting a vehicle in the safezone.
• Fixed Fatal Error caused by NVGs.
• Fixed NPCs sometimes not attacking crouched players.
• Fixed Infected melee attacks missing crouched players.
• Fixed issue with items being dropped in safezone giving negative integrity when picked back up.
• Fixed notice boards locking the game’s controls after loading a save game.
• Fixed movement camera shake getting stuck after death.
• Fixed ‘sticky’ [F] key issue.
• Fixed not sprinting when holding shift before moving.
• Fixed being able to lockpick containers that have been unlocked after loading a save.
• Fixed losing too much integrity when looting containers by clicking take all.
• Fixed shortcut bar displaying on screen on player death.
• Fixed horse energy being stuck on screen when first loading the game.
• Fixed notification of ‘None’ being too heavy when adding items from containers to the player inventory.
• Fixed pressing [ESC] key while in bug reporter losing mouse camera function and WASD unless character suicides or uses the admin menu to get movement back.
• Fixed NPCs abnormally looking at the character.
• Fixed instances of deer with only one HP causing them to die instantly when damaged.
• Fixed animation issues when harvesting rocks and trees.
• Fixed stamina VFX sometimes not displaying.
• Fixed the floating information boxes for items rendering partially out of screen when hovering over equipment in the character screen.
• Fixed the floating tip boxes flickering on the top corner of the screen when hovering over vital stats in the player inventory on the character screen.
• Fixed issue with locked chests being unlocked only to have nothing inside.
• Fixed issue with animals being harvested and not giving a sufficient amount of resources. This will be changed again soon when different size pelts are introduced.
• Fixed geometry of beams in the lighthouse blocking players inside.
• Fixed issues with blurry ST-RV and weapons.
• Fixed children leaning on fences.
• Fixed disappearing fences near the covered bridge.
• Fixed Infected Nests spawning when loading a save game before the game has fully loaded, causing issues.
• Fixed campfires not returning player to first-person if entering rest position in first person.
• Fixed an issue where the character would lean backwards after vaulting after using a campfire rest location in first person.
• Fixed not being able to climb on the cobblestone walls around Hanouten.
• Fixed traders eye materials not being rendered correctly.
• Fixed dying or loading on Nomad preventing the player from being able to talk to Ken to hand in quests.
• Fixed rock in the middle of the road near a construction yard.
• Fixed cliffs with dark colouration.
• Fixed issue with not being able to consume or use items while a weapon was equipped.
• Fixed not being able to access the wheel menu on tents.
• Fixed issue causing dropped items to disappear when loading a saved game.
• Fixed iron sights on weapons sometimes not showing after switching weapons if the weapon already had an attachment on it.
• Fixed weapon position being wrong while aiming in first person if the original weapon had a sight and new weapon does not.
• Fixed items giving XP when moving them from one slot to another in the inventory.
• Fixed NVGs being visible / clipping with the player camera when in first person mode.
• Fixed Morale display on the sleeping UI displaying incorrect data if morale went over 100%.
• Fixed spawning after dying getting stuck in an infinite loop.
• Fixed hacksaw going missing when auto-managing the player inventory.
• Fixed horde warning getting stuck on screen at game load.
• Fixed Battery Charger not saving.
• Fixed missing swim volume on pond near lighthouse.
• Fixed integrity not saving.
• Fixed kill stats not saving from session to session.
• Fix where interacting with a flaming NPC will cause the player to catch fire and die when later moving into the range another heat sources.
• Fixed bleeding to death in a vehicle not allowing a player to respawn.
• Fixed notifications not displaying all items added / picked up.
• Fixed Jess’ materials not being rendered correctly.
• Arrows shot by the player no longer give a reputation penalty when picking them back up in safe zones.
• Raised sleeper NPCs in the ground on a wooden bridge near the basketball court in Hanouten.
• Fixed horse statistics blocking inventory slots in the players inventory.
• Fixed gaining additional integrity and XP from completed quests on loading a save game.

Known issues & outstanding changes

• Torch doesn’t illuminate directly towards the center of the screen making it difficult to examine objects in close spaces.
• Game is missing left-handed support.
• Swapping an item with a Jerry Can in the fuel slot on the quad causes the other item to be placed in the fuel slot.
• When LED light runs out of battery, it unequips but does not re-enable belt chem-light.
• NPCs can have ‘black beams’ coming out of their eyes when running the game using FXAA.
• Sleeping bags placed on foundations or flat ground can sometimes be placed at an unusual angle.
• Number of Bandages and Medkits appears incorrectly on the HUD after loading a savegame.
• Disturbance Meter appears incorrectly on the HUD after loading a savegame.