Friday -- what a nice day to drop an update right before everyone working on the game is leaving the (virtual) office! Hold on to your Cowboy Hats and Ice Brinks, and get ready to embark on the Sunburn Desert! What to expect on your sunny holiday? Vultures Lots of sand Cacti Among other things, you'll be tracking a Lost Convoy, visiting Mandrake's Diamond Mine, and squatting the Shady Mansion. That's all I can say to avoid further spoilers. So we're making steady development progress. Over half of the island is now playable, but there's still a lot of work to be done.

Highlights

Builder's Kit Improvements

We've fixed lots of small things regarding the Builder's Kit. All the things you've built will now show up on your map. We've also added a new Teardown Efficiency invention which enables you to get all the materials back from the stuff you've built. No new buildables have been added in this patch though, but more stuff coming soon(ish)! We'll want to fix all the issues regarding this before you can unleash your inner builder. You'll also need some context before you can/want build the turrets for example.

Amber Pills

Consider this. You've ran deep into the desert without proper outfits. You've ate all your food items on the way just to stay alive in the sweltering heat, and you've finally managed to reach a distant but safe campfire. Victory? Not really, because you can't really get back out from the desert anymore if you've already eaten all your food items. Amber Pills to the rescue! These tasty treats now have an additional long press use for swallowing a handful of pills instead of just one. Use this and you will awake near the first campfire at your home shelter. So even after series of bad decisions you can now always return home. (Just don't tell that to your skeleton.)

The Old Train

You may remember this screenshot with the dude wondering what to do with the train. Well, you'll now be introduced with your very first train. Note that this isn't the same one you'll find there near Mandrake's. (Also, to avoid Early Access disappointments, you can't ride the train just yet.)

Quest for Stopping Respawning Monsters

Some players seem to be disappointed when they see the monsters respawning after resting at the campfire. Some see this as a reliable source of certain materials. You can choose how you want to play it, but we'd like to make it clear that you CAN in fact stop the respawnings. It's your only way to get Mana Beads, which will become very important as you venture further. We've now added a new quest to highlight this, so expect to get a new quest after leaving the campfire the next time. If you've already installed the transmitter to that particular link tower, don't worry, installing it to any new link tower will complete the quest!

Change Log

ADDED

- Access to new area 'Sunburn Desert'. - Level Cap is now 29. - New craftables: Proximity Mines (level 28), Safari Outfit (level 26, same as winter coat). - New quest: Stop Monster Respawning that's triggered after you leave a campfire when you're at least XP level 3. - Graphics option: vertical sync. - Controls option: lock mouse cursor inside window. - Added fourth main tool inventory slot. - Added Invention: Teardown Efficienciency which gives back all of the building materials when breaking an object you've built. - Showing things you've built on the map. - Amber (Mana) Pills long press action now takes you back to home shelter (for situations where you've managed to get too far and have no other way back). - Own tooltips for keyboard in some screens. - If you've disabled auto-collect for some material, now showing auto-collect disabled text when near those materials. (To avoid getting bug reports about this.)

CHANGED

- Dropped material pick up radius is reduced for 10 seconds to prevent accidental pickup. - Reworked Criticals. Gained bonuses are now additional instead of percentual increases.This should both make the criticals work as intended and make it a lot clearer to the player what their critical chances are. - Rebalanced numbers for modifiers and trinkets related to critical hits. Affected are Critical Hit Chance, Backstab Critical Chance, Critical Hit Damage, Counterweight and Acupuncture Needles. - Buffed Machete attack speed by 5%. - The quests "Preparing For Winter" and "Sweltering Heat" now trigger once the player meets harsh temperatures for the first time. This also unlocks required inventions for the quests. Further, due to this change, "Ice Brick", "Hot Water Bottle", "Fur Hat" and "Cowboy Hat" have had their level requirements removed. - Moved a number of inventions in the invention tree to more logical places (No effect, if already unlocked). - Nerfed a number of food recipe effects that were too good for their own right. - You can't build in Tombs. - Builder's Kit can't be used if enemies are too near or targeting you. - Balanced material requirements for smelter products. - Faster load times.

FIXED

- Sawmill unlocking when crafting Builder's Kit. (To unlock Sawmill, just go and use the Sawmill once more in the north.) - Some edge cases with wrong temperatures in certain areas. - Monster scanner now counts stationary monsters too. - Not showing up new monster slain popups for creatures that don't have a collection entry. - Usual fixes to graphical glitches and typos. - More clarifications for some quest descriptions and objective texts. - Fixed gamepad tooltips showing up in cases where they shouldn't.

Up Next

The next update will focus on Lore and Ancient Myths. It will contain only a small new area update, but that one will prepare you for your journey into the next area after that. Much excitement!

[ 2021-03-12 17:16:19 CET ] [ Original post ]