Icarus

Icarus Dev Tracker




18 Apr

Post
    Shamm on Steam - Thread - Direct
Originally posted by author: Pets Bundle available for Pre-Purchase
This is the first time we have a bundle that features a "bundle only" package. To minimize the chances that things break, we are preparing as much as possible ahead of time. Just in time for its release alongside the free Laika update next week, we've just made the Pets Bundle available on Steam. This contains the Pet Companions and Creature Comforts content packs, and as a bonus you will get access to the Zebra Rescue Mission - only available if you purchase the bundle.
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Post
    /u/ on Steam - Thread - Direct
A lil somethin somethin: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page here.

16 Apr

Comment

Originally posted by TheKushDaddy

Hello. Thanks for your reply. And why are Vehicles unfun?

While mounts are only faster than the character when they sprint, but slower when they get exhausted. And moving is a lot of time just the mather of wasting 20mins to get somewhere, without any point. Feels like old OG dayz (walking siumlator).

The vehicles needed our extensive plans for the orbital station, as they were heavily component driven. You would drop down, get the stuff you needed, go to orbit, make better engine etc... When that was taken away, the vehicles were magical devices that kind of just undid the whole idea of movement and going around.

Without all of that the game is a "walking simulator". It is designed as "cavemen in spacesuits", like a Peter F. Hamilton book. So the game is heavily balanced around prepping for a hike basically. That was what was achievable and what the game focused on.


14 Apr

Comment

Originally posted by TheKushDaddy

Don't understand, why vehicles work in other games, but not in Icarus.

Icarus seems to have problems with graphical rendering. I have a RTX 3090 and Icarus can bearly do 60 FPS on 2k Mon, while I game Dayz on 120 FPS on High settings. It seems that all Area (even if not looked by the player) is rendered in full detail or sth. And even then, when you enter a cave or sprint in a new chunk, the area is not loaded fully.

As an enthusiast of Icarus, I am really curious, if the development is working on bettering the graphical rendering, and furthermore planning to add vehicles, later, when rendering is fixed?

I didn’t say they didn’t work, I said they caused performance and balance issues. Most especially with how we made the world.

There are enormous amount of trees in the game, and other rocks. How ICARUS tracks the world is more memory intensive than other games, allowing us to set trees on fire and other things.

Loading in/out of chunks is the cause of lots of memory “churn” and this loading in/out causes or exacerbated the circumstances that cause stuttering.

We had vehicles working but they were not fun, and not performant. Additional work would have to be done on a lot of areas for vehicles to have a fun game loop.


13 Apr

Comment

Done is the catch all close for tickets on feature upvote. Essentially the ticket has been reviewed and it is not planned.

Vehicles were added to the game and removed during development, as they were not fun and causing significant performance problems.

Instead, they were replaced with tamed animals. These use existing systems and are slow enough to not exacerbate streaming terrain and cave performance issues that vehicles bring.


12 Apr

Post
    /u/ on Steam - Thread - Direct
A lil somethin somethin: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page here.
Post
    Shamm on Steam - Thread - Direct
Originally posted by author: Warning: Next week we are planning on rolling out a patch that our optimization team has been hard at work on. It involves a long standing issue with patch times. Due to the way steam's patching process works with UE4 games there has been issues in the past with some people experiencing long download and patching times. What we are doing is adjusting the way Icarus is being packed and distributed to work better with steams patching process.

This means that next week you will need to redownload the entire Icarus game but it also means that Icarus updates going forward will patch noticeably faster from week to week and the size on disk will be reduced.

This update will not effect your save files, all progress will be maintained.

Due to this we plan on rolling out next weeks patch a day early as to not interrupt anyone's regular weekend play time.
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05 Apr

Post
    /u/ on Steam - Thread - Direct
A lil somethin somethin: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page here.
Post
    Shamm on Steam - Thread - Direct
Week 122 is here and it is all about sleep.

We’re introducing a new Coziness system, which incorporates your home decor into the quality and duration of your sleep, giving you a boost if you’ve invested time and effort into making your home more cozy.

We’ve also got some more information on Laika and the new Talent Trees for Mounts/Tames, and an exciting update on space travel customs relaxing their restrictions on traveling with your furry friends.

Jump in and have a read.

Notable Improvements:
  • Optimizations in tree stumps and building base, drastically reducing memory usage of these assets which are some of the most common assets in the game
  • Update tree fall audio check to cast instead of tag query (to avoid any issues with reloading or incorrect tagging), reducing hard references and reducing memory footprint
  • Added the ability to sleep near an active Air Conditioner, Heater or Dehumidifi...
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28 Mar

Post
    Shamm on Steam - Thread - Direct
Welcome to Week 121.

You'll notice that this update is coming to you a day early, that is because we have the Easter holiday period here in NZ. So tomorrow our staff will be on a well deserved break.

This week we’re giving the game a QoL pass, focusing on improving the UI and adding a few new small features that will add a new layer of depth.

These include consolidating the recipes on the Crafting Bench → Machining Bench → Fabricator so that each tier hosts the previous tier's recipes, and a new water purifying tablet in the orbital workshop.

We’ve also got an update on some of the content you can expect in the upcoming Laika update.

Jump in and have a read.

Notable Improvements:
  • Added prospect name to open world operations UI
  • Add Pyritic Crust for Stone and Salt
  • Added tag query for mission items, so players can filter to only show mission items
  • Fixed many...
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Post
    /u/ on Steam - Thread - Direct
A lil somethin somethin: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page here.

22 Mar

Post
    /u/ on Steam - Thread - Direct
A lil somethin somethin: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page here.
Post
    Shamm on Steam - Thread - Direct
Week 120 brings a new layer of depth to the water quality system and three new water purifiers.

We’ve also adjusted the modifiers applied by different drinking vessels, so hot drinks can be sipped on rather than consumed all at once.

We’ve also got an update on Laika, our upcoming creature-themed update, and the new paid DLC that is to be paired with it.

Jump in and have a read.

Notable Improvements:
  • Wind turbines will no longer take damage when the selected difficulty is easy
  • Wolves no longer howl every time they play their idle animation, this will now only happen ~1/3 of the time
  • Wild Beehives now grant XP and Bestiary progress toward Bees
  • Landshark now grants relevant XP and loot. Fixed killed Landsharks not being destroyed on death (was being hidden)
  • Waterskins have been buffed to no longer leak water
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14 Mar

Post
    /u/ on Steam - Thread - Direct
A lil somethin somethin: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page here.
Post
    Shamm on Steam - Thread - Direct
Welcome to Week 119, with the spiky introduction of Brambles.

These homegrown deployable defenses provide an environmentally friendly way to defend your base, being able to be grown from seeds and harvested before being deployed around your base.

We’ve also got news on our next big update and paid content pack, Laika and the Creature Comforts DLC.

Also included are some more balance fixes for Networks and Batteries and info on next week's update.

Jump in and have a read.

Notable Improvements:
  • Improved performance of T3 Spawn Blocker by significantly reducing the number of times it will update the spawn blocker area. It now only updates when adding or running out of fuel
  • Updated modifier effectiveness display, scaling around 100% instead of positive or negative effect. This better shows that less effective modifiers only have X% effect. Eg a 20% effectiveness modifier shows as 20% instead of -80%, ...
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13 Mar

Post
    Shamm on Steam Forums - Thread - Direct
FEEDBACK & TROUBLESHOOTING
Where can I report bugs or make suggestions?

Please submit bugs and suggestions to Feature Upvote[icarus.featureupvote.com]. First, do a search to see if someone else has the same feedback or problem. An answer may already be posted or you can upvote the existing ticket.

Where can I get advice about how to play the game?

You can ask other players in these Steam forums or join the official ... Read more

08 Mar

Post
    /u/ on Steam - Thread - Direct
A lil somethin somethin: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page here.
Post
    Shamm on Steam - Thread - Direct
Welcome to week 118. We’re continuing our work on the Resource Network update from last week, with a bunch of fixes and balances added, along with a few new features that we mentioned were going to be in this week's update.

We’ve also got some info on next week's update, and some mission fixes that were needed to address the impacts of the new Resource Network.

Hop in and have a read.

Notable Improvements:
  • Added Total Growth Speed indicator to Crop Plot inspection UI
  • Fixed railing orientation on all floor pieces so now railings will be the correct orientation (especially on stairs)
  • Fixed issue with Water Troughs where the water would not appear in the mesh when it contained water
  • KILL LIST / FRACTURE: Fixed Decals not removing grass, these should be much easier to find
  • Fixed Processor recipe icons width, now correctly has 7 across again. Auto processors now have 3 acro...
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29 Feb

Post
    /u/ on Steam - Thread - Direct
A lil somethin somethin: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page here.
Post
    Shamm on Steam - Thread - Direct
Batteries are here.

Not only have we refactored the entire network system to allow for batteries and variable flow rates, but the system itself has been heavily optimized to be more efficient in both network traffic (that is sending data from the server to clients) and server processing (that is the amount of calculations done from second to second). This aims to improve both server and client performance when it comes to resource networks.

This has been a long process, and we’ll go into detail below on the extensive changes and reworks we had to do to deliver it, including multiple reworks and a lot of man-hours invested on our end.

We break down the new system, what you can expect, a host of new items as well as balance changes that have come along with it.

Jump in and check it all out below.

Notable Improvements:
  • Water networks are now accessible at Tier 3 (find out more below).
  • Sprinklers are no...
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