Evening all! Hope we’re all ship-shape and Bristol fashion, and yes this is a line purely intended to reference the amazing boat construction that appeared on Steam this week. Release-wise we’re hoping to have public test versions of the easy server creation and easy friend invite co-op that General Arcade are working on towards the end of the week. It’s complex stuff that’ll need to work with an array of different set-ups, so may well justify having its own beta channel rather than being part of the current IWBUMS releases. Right now we have a few minor issues with the steam co-op build and a few UI things we need to sort, however it feels close. No ETAs as usual, but by close we hopefully mean close – not ‘in a few weeks’. We should also be releasing a test version of Turbo’s radio/TV modding and translation tool in the near future, which is currently being played with internally. What else? Read on… METALWORKING As we mentioned last week we’ve rethought metalworking so that it features two new skills – welding and metalworking. We’re still underlining the specifics, but welding will see players using a noisy/bright blow torch and mask to adapt heavy scrap metal found around the map into defences – often used in conjunction with our existing carpentry skill. Metalworking, meanwhile, involves you investing a many in-game days building a stone furnace stage-by-stage – and then creating makeshift tools/items through iron that you make workable within the furnace, then hammer away at on a lump of metal used as an anvil.  
Metal objects will come with their own positives and negatives (a metal sheet welded together with discovered scrap will make more noise when banged on and attract more zeds, for example) and we intend it to be a high level and high input aspect of survival – and fully complementary to our existing skills. We really want to nail the delivery of it though, which is why RJ is industriously busying himself with it all backstage.   GREETINGS FELLOW SURVIVOR Here’s a quick demo of a few of the new individual character animations, incidental movements and emotes coming to Project Zomboid. Whether triggered by a player or by the character automatically, the new animation system will bring a ton of new animations into the game so players know how their doomed survivors are feeling. And let them sit down! Woo! As a bonus we’ve thrown in a few other anims. Can you guess what they all are without the benefit of context? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eKjSCEt_fo This week’s Featured Image from Pikiiipow, from the tiny non-crowded hamlet known as Steam. The Block of Italicised Text would like to point earnestly in the general direction of the PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter here!