Hello, fellow Martians!
It’s been a while.
We know that you were waiting for too long, and so were we. During this time, we’ve been following every single thread, reading every post and message on our social media, Discord and Steam forums. These were very different, some of them kind and supportive, other ones painfully honest. 😅
Thank you for each of them! This way we knew what to focus on, and also that there are a lot of people waiting for this update. This devlog is dedicated to all of you our loyal astronauts! 🧑🚀
So... fasten your seatbelts, put your helmets on, because here it comes, the Anniversary update! 🚀
The Anniversary Update brings many revolutionary changes to core gameplay aspects, including survival mechanics, electricity system, building system, player animations, HUD, scanning, decorations and much more. We can’t wait for you to dive in and explore everything that’s new. 🔎
However, we want to be upfront with you. While this patch brings some exciting new content, we’re aware that it’s not yet perfect. That’s not an excuse, but a kind of a compromise; we know that it took us a long time to release this update, so today we’re sharing a reasonably stable version, but there are still some areas that need refinement. Thanks in advance for your bug reports, we will investigate them as they arise. The hotfixes are coming!
Important information before you launch the game
We’ve been announcing this in previous devlogs but we want to confirm that because of changes to core gameplay aspects the Anniversary Update does not support saves from previous game versions. We're sorry about that, we know that many of you have built incredible bases. If you wish to continue playing on your old save files you can always switch to old game version using the Steam game properties (Betas tab):You will find many past versions there such as builds from Exploration Update or Nuclear Update. This way you can always keep playing and expanding your bases. We hope that the reworked game mechanics will be worth it and that dropping save compatibility won't be required again in the future. We believe, that the new features and content will compensate for this inconvenience well and that it will be worth starting over. We’re waiting for screenshots of your new, upgraded bases!
Anniversary Update | Changelog v0.160.2 -> v0.184.2
Features
- Added possibility to build battery rack in the lobby
- Added possibility to remove unwanted notifications from the list
- Plants can now be collected all at once with one click
- Building antennas will let you see what weather phenomenon is incoming
- Lack of sleep now affects health and stamina
- Vehicles other than rover can now be covered with a dust after the sandstorm too
- It's possible to mix different types of plants on fields now
- Added more building coloring on the radar for easier differentiation of building's health
- Added short descriptions for locked blueprints
- Changed number of slots in incubator and pot to make them consistent
- Destroying a composter will now result with throwing loot out
- Removed internal energy storage for rover and truck. Battery is always required.
- Buildings can now be repaired instantly with a dedicated repair kit
- Vehicles can now be repaired instantly with a dedicated repair kit
- Added new type of outposts and items inside of them
- Added new functionality to the spectral detector - furniture and decorations scanning
- Added display of target point names on HUD (consistent with name in radar)
- Added ability to take the helmet off when crouching
- Feet are now snapping to the uneven terrain
- Rover charge level is now visible from the outside on the HUD
- Fuses added to building requirements
- The sleep timer panel has been changed
- Implemented new video-tutorial system
- Added interactable sockets inside of buildings to facilitate building process - take the blowtorch out, point it on the coin-like icon and the list of devices that can be build in this place will show up
- You can now add furnishing to your base!
- Added "Cleaning Nanobots" to the tech tree for instant-cleaning solar panels
- Added printable decorations and decoration variants mechanics
- Greatly improved water bottle refilling, you can refill every bottle at once no matter if bottles are in your suit slot or inventory. Added option to automatically move bottle after refiling to inventory
- Added pop-up window for in-game devlog note
- Added adjustable weather effects duration
- Fuses can now be burned if too much powers is given
- Added possibility to print circuit boards
- Added search bar to the blueprints menu in tablet, inventory and knowledge base
- Added feature to reset player when stuck
- Added buildable launchpad
- Added fullscreen mode to rover remote controller
- Added tooltips in main menu for freeplay starting items
- Added targeting minigame for drilling rocks, building and grinding
Improvements
- Added electronic board to big miner
- Improved save system (lower probability of disappearing/returning rocks, bases and objects)
- Improved building placement and snapping
- Improved lights in domes
- Improved game balance (experience, tech tree, players parameters, starting loot, and more!)
- Significantly sped up airlock opening
- Broken quad and landing capsule can now be grinded with grinder lvl 2 or 3
- Improved animations e.g. running, crouching, rotation in place, tool usage, tool changing, backward diagonal walking
- Oxytree is now producing more oxygen
- Trees are now not disappearing after harvesting fruits form them
- The hydration system has been changed. Now you have 2 bars that show water-related parameters - water level in the bottle and hydration level. Even when you run out of water in the bottle assigned to your suit, as long as the hydration bar (the bottom one) is not red you are safe.
- Changed GUI and added labels to CO2 Scrubber's valves
- Improved electrical system, values in each device are numerical, no more percentages!
- Now sockets also have their priorities - connect the most important objects to the socket with the lowest number. Also - the update time has been changed to 1 minute in-game.
- Improved corridor panels
- A weather customization option has been added (how often weather events will occur and how long they should last at most - you can even choose to turn off weather events, but then don't count on achievements). The length and frequency of weather phenomena has also been rebalanced
- Added new outposts
- Added possibility to mute or pause SFX sound when ESC is pressed
- Unified the key to change modes (e.g. change the tip of the rover arm, water detector or plants crate mode) to Q
- Improved freeplay start screen
- Added new tech tree technologies
- Added new tutorials system
- Main menu globe polish
- Improved pendrive colors
- Improved stack sizes
- Improved weather notifications
- Improved FAQ
- Small visual main menu improvements
- Added pop-up to present newest changes in game
- Improved window with startup settings after the first launch of the game
- Improved battery coloring
- Improved in-game warnings
- Improved sandstorm push effect
- Removed unnecessary power socket from starting capsule
- Polished workbench UI
- Added more colors, more icons and name displaying to target points
- Improved airlock particles
- Improved tablet's UI
- Improved HUD when tablet is open
- Speeded up capsule doors
- Changed quicksave key to F9
- Unified the key to turn on lights/flashlight
- Added more resources close to the starting capsule
- Improved flashlight position
- Improved dust appearance
- Improved weather effects graphics
- Improved flashlight
- Electricity is now marked with coloring on the map
- Improved radar
- Removed outside lever form the rover
- Added search for Knowledge Base
- Added smoothing out exiting free camera in TPP
- Enlarged small fonts
- Improved night sky
- Refreshed staring HUD tutorial
- Radio was moved from tech tree to decorations, now you need to find it in abandoned base and scan
- Increased anti meteorite rocket capacity
- Made printing time more realistic
- Added info panel on how to use rover remote controller
- Disabled FSR from default presets
- Disabled manual change of input substance from the pump station. The substance will be detected automatically
- Added option to adjust sound settings when the game is launched for the first time
- Improved big crusher inventories UI
- AI voice has been split from tool sounds
- Added saving of door/flap status
- Added sorting button in inventory
- Jumping to the rocket has been made easier
- Added more fire to Escape sequence
- Improved cables and pipes
- Added red light above airlocks that cannot be entered in introbase
- More slots added to inventory truck
- Added circuit box to the starting condition (tourist)
- Improved hangar driveway
- Added inventory to the trash bin to get rid of unnecessary items faster
- Improved jetpack sounds
- Added thunder storm sound effect
Bugfixes - Critical
- Fixed disappearing parts of outposts
- Fixed disappearing and displacing blueprints after save/load
- Reduced FPS drops when driving vehicles
- Fixed issue with reappearing rocks
- Fixed issue with infinite sleep animation
- Fixed bug with player moved to sky after picking up cable connected to landing capsule
- Fixed the problem with killer ores, now you should be safe
- Fixed ghost sandstorm event
- And fixed another case of endless sleep
- Fixed disappearing ITS
- Fixed another case of endless sleep
- Fixed grinding causing crashes
Bugfixes - High
- Fixed issue with outposts coming back after being scrapped
- Fixed floating circuit boards after scrapping an outpost
- Fixed rocks appearing inside of player's base
- Fixed issue with building a composter in a big dome
- Fixed cupboards opening up/closing after save/load
- Fixed fridge requiring less power than storage cabinet
- Fixed rover's container UI scrolling issues
- Polished achievement star from the freeplay menu
- Fixed battery rack duplicating items
- Fixed active extension buttons in rover not being highlighted
- Fixed rocks falling under the terrain
- Fixed issue with being able to place small crusher too low
- Fixed not being able to talk to the governor in campaign
- Fixed issue with missing supply drops
- Raised up "sleep deprivation warning" to not hide other icons on the HUD
- Raised "sleep deprivation warning" a bit because it was covering other icons on the HUD
- Fixed issue with Top GUI appearing in TPP
- Fixed unexplained helmet breakage after sleep
- Fixed quad with rocket engine falling too far after crash
- Fixed issue with changing trailers on big crusher
- Fixed issue with missing power in introbase after talking to the governor
- Fixed issue with duplicating ATV in hangar
- Fixed levitating rocks after drilling
- Fixed issue with wrong information about tipper load
- Fixed night vision strange blinking effect
- Fixed issue with Rover Oxygen Extension name inconsistent with the item name in the techtree
- Fixed save not loading
- Fixed small unevenness that could prevent building extensions
- Fixed issue with H2O/O2/Hunger not dropping, weather effects not occuring
- Fixed issue with player blocked after entering ECU panel
- Fixed problem with collecting fully grown plants with full inventory
- Fixed level of oxygen in rover not consistent to the notifications
- Fixed overexposed rover cockpit
- Fixed iItems from the container are not picked up after grinding
- Fixed issue with tablet black screen
- Fixed issue with entering ATV
- Fixed another case of endless sleep
- Fixed issue with duplicating batteries in battery rack
- Fixed long hair sticking out from helmet + helmet animation bugs
- Fixed blinking % value on uranium centrifuge
- Fixed some cases of bugged inventories
Bugfixes - Normal
- Fixed unnatural glow when drilling rocks
- Fixed issue with floating caves and holes in the terrain under them
- Moved rear camera of the rover so it won't be covered by the arm
- Fixed incorrect sandstorm's direction
- Fixed issue with specific rocks type reappearing after save/load
- Fixed dust being too easy to clean after the sandstorm
- Fixed cleaning rover from the dust after sandstorm
- Added new tab in tablet dedicated for notifications so they won't pop up after waking up all ot once
- Fixed issues with placing uranium centrifuge blueprint
- Fixed inability to place pump station upgrade on Korolev Crater
- Polished main menu's crane physics
- Improved events' UI appearance and consistency
- Rebalanced cost of pack of screws
- Fixed issue with hanging parts of the grinded outposts
- Fixed sink not shutting off automatically
- Fixed missing grabbing animation form specific type of rocks
- Fixed CO2 scrubber doors to be less clumsy
- Fixed issue with "unload zone" pop-up always being visible
- Fixed issue with reappearing medium circuit board from starting capsule after being picked up and after save/load
- Fixed case with endless sleep
- Removed unnecessary objects from the crusher's printer menu
- Fixed light source in motocross
- Fixed issue with planting site highlighting
- Fixed rover radar speed boost
- Fixed issue with duplicating MRE
- Visual fixes in introbase
- Fixed a bug that resulted in the shower not turning off automatically.
- Fixed issue with heavy suit different color after loading save
- Fixed wrong tornado alert when dust devils start
- Fixed interactable loading bar
- Fixed ores are falling under map
- Fixed some of the mined ores teleport below ground
- Fixed missing grinding sound
- Fixed stars not visible on low and very low quality
- Added quad shadow
- Added information about slower XP gain on madman
- Fixed issue with changing graphic settings breaks order of layers
- Blocked possibility to open door during driving murstruck
- Fixed orange windows issue in Outposts
- Fixed supply drop tablets not stacking
- Added plant HP protection in hand
- Fixed the helmet putting on animation in the airlock
- Added boost key in quad to controls
- Fixed turning on lights on quad
- Fixed the quad battery status refresh
- Fixed air compressor doesn't respond to the option " Hold to use tool"
- Fixed returning 'press button' text in main menu
- Unearthed half-buried outpost
- Fixed HQ transparent roof at low LOD
- Fixed running with Spotty board in hands
- Fixed wrong quad speed on UI
- Fixed duplicated messages tab control icons (while playing with gamepad)
- Fixed blinking "Enter" option while moving crane
- Fixed many ores falling from one rock
- Fixed long hair penetrating the helmet
Bugfixes - Low
- Fixed 3d printer door overlapping the CO2 scrubber
- Polished Marstruck's inventory UI to better fit the screen
- Fixed hand position while holding MRE
- Small IT translation fixes
- Fixed cables in introbase
- Fixed big dome strange light effect
- Fixed issues with battery and oxygen indicator
- Fixed water auto shut-off
- Fixed quad shadow on the map
- Fixed issue with cleaning vehicles with air compressor
- Fixed small translation issues in DE
- Added helmet damage after explosion
- Fixed missing translation keys in controls options (player)
- Fixed tank showing wrong content
- Fixed player oxygen meter
- Fixed sky texture on very low and low graphic
- Fixed stars reflection on domes
- Fixed helmet edges visible on quad and cross
- Fixed strange window texture in landing capsule
- Fixed wrong O2 indication on UI
- Fixed tools lvl 2 do not make any sound
- Fixed quad sounds
- Fixed driving sound while being in ESC menu
- Fixed sound of the rover drill audible when the tip is not working
- Small polish translations fixes
- Fixed strange percentage value appearing on the uranium centrifuge
You can read even more about the changes in previous devlog:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/758690/announcements/detail/4261049898200059363
As you can see, that was a lot of work. A significant portion of the changes we've implemented involved a complete overhaul of the core game mechanics. This isn't just a matter of adjusting a few values in a spreadsheet; it requires rewriting large sections of code, including additional code revisions and corrections due to the possible ripple effects. Each correction also needs to be tested in a proper way. And finally, we've developed entirely new game mechanics for features that didn’t exist before.
Known issues
High
- Items previously transferred from printer inventory to the container are gone. Workaround: do not use advanced management of the crusher’s inventory until we fix that. The basic management should be safe.
- Can't pick up the bottle form CO2 scrubber with auto-fill option enabled. Possible workaround: save/load the game and you’ll be able to pick it up
- Tutorial not displaying properly after interacting with the elevator in the alpha base
- Various translations missing or incorrect
- Incorrect notifications after completing quests in campaign
- Trailer hanging in the air in hangar
- List of required building components sometimes looks bad
- Missing texture in campaign in the explosion scene
- Inconsistency in outposts' textures
- Wrongly placed heavy suit battery slot in the inventory
- Leaving the motocross seat close to the hangar may result in dark terrain
- Wrong info on water detector lvl 3 screen (change mode to fix that issue)
- Minigame: cannot keep grinding after disappearance of the point
- Various issues with scanning and stacking decorations
- Issues with merging MRE
- Disappearing jetpack after startup, resulting in the player falling from the sky. Workaround: don’t save your game while flying, jetpack only disappears when you save/load the game after taking off.
- Issue with targeting the chair in the landing capsule
- Increasing electricity exp points, while they shouldn’t grow
- Weather effects affecting player in some places of closed outpost
- Various issues with interactions with cabinets in particular type of outpost
- "Continue" button allowing to start loading old (incompatible) saves
- After demolishing one of the base’s structures, the NaN value will appear on the screens of any devices that show water data, control panels in buildings, UI, on the radar, pump stations etc. Workaround: save/load the game.
- Disappearing circuit board from the broken quad after loading the save. Possible workaround: to put the new circuit board inside of the ATV, simply save/load the game. The destroyed one won’t be back, though.
- Infinite filling of oxygen bottle in CO2 scrubber
- After resetting the rover from the vehicle's tab level, the rover sinks under the terrain making it impossible to drive. Workaround: save/load the game.
- Doubled probe, only one left after save/load
- After interacting with doubled probe, ESC menu doesn’t work. Workaround: save/load the game
- Minimum required amount of sleep is shown too late. Workaround: if the sleep button is not responsive, simply set the sleep time to later
Medium / Low
- Blinking texture in specific type of outpost
- No collider in airlock for a specific type of outpost
- Scrap 3in1 tanks can be grinded with grinder lvl1 when being inside of the hangar
- Disappearing vehicle after player's death
- Missing collider in landing capsule
- Various issues with text on the UI
- Crusher's lever broken animation
- Visible motocross' open electricity socket while driving
- Reappearing probe after being grinded after save/load
- Unpleasant grinder animation
- Disappearing light in motocross from distance
We're currently working on an update to address this issues. Please don’t forget that Occupy Mars is still in its Early Access phase. Early access is more than just a label; it’s a vital part of our game’s development process. It means that while it is playable and full of exciting content, it’s also a work in progress. But most importantly, it means that you, our players, have a direct influence on each update.
Your feedback, ideas, and suggestions are what inspires us to push forward, make changes, and continue improving. Every update is shaped by your input, and we’re incredibly grateful for your continued support. We’re creating this project together.
Alright, no more boring speeches! Let’s go and try the update already!
We just can’t wait to see what you think about it!
Yours,
Occupy Mars Team
