[2022] Icarus Week Twenty-Six Update | Bugs & Performance #1

Last week we dropped the biggest content update to Icarus yet with the Styx Map & Missions Pack DLC. This week’s update brings a large batch of bug fixes, performance improvements and gameplay balances.

We’re also unlocking the final two promised Styx missions and introducing the Larkwell Bow and arrow varieties to the Orbital Workshop for the hunters among you.

Originally posted by author: Performance and bugfixing has been a priority since we began the beta, but with a more solid foundation we now have the ability to make some of our weekly updates focused directly on improving both the stability of the game, and how it runs. This will be the first of what will be many updates focused on general performance and bugfixes. Note optimization takes time and requires a great deal of caution and testing; improvements come gradually over time.

Please ensure you check you are running the latest graphics card drivers!. We have worked directly with video card manufacturers and they have made changes to their graphics drivers directly to improve performance. It's vital you keep these up to date.
- Dean Hall, Gamerunner

2 New Missions
This week we’ve unlocked the RENDEZVOUS: Delivery and BALLISTIC: Extermination missions to complete the sixteen mission pack that comes with the new Styx map. Your briefings are as follows:

RENDEZVOUS: Delivery

// OPERATOR: Uniao

// BIOME: Alpine Valley

// BACKGROUND: The operator requires a very delicate biosample from the surface.

// MISSION: Retrieve the required sample and ensure its safe return to orbit. Note that the sample will be highly sensitive to temperature.

// TERMS: Flat fee. No acknowledgement will be given for damaged or unusable samples.


BALLISTIC: Extermination

// OPERATOR: Sinotai

// BIOME: The Oasis

// BACKGROUND: Sinotai has been made aware of an increase in hostile wildlife within their granted research plot.

// MISSION: Dispatch any hostile wildlife in the region to guarantee the safety of the operator's team.

// TERMS: Flat fee. All safety and survival concerns are the responsibility of the Contractor.



Larkwell Bow + Arrows
This update adds several new items from Larkwell Martinez to the Orbital Workshop, including the long awaited High-Performance Compound Bow. Providing a deadly silent option for the elusive prospector, this bow comes with a range of arrow options, allowing you to personalize it even further.

• Ballistic Arrow - A small yet devastating explosive charge which detonates on impact. Handle with care.
  
• Tazer Arrow - Somewhat clunky to use due to its weight, the Tazer arrow will briefly slow creatures.
  
• Bleed Arrow - Equipped with serrated edging to maximize damage, this arrow will cause on-going damage after the first hit lands.
  
• Standard Arrow - Not your typical run-of-the-mill arrow head, this precision crafted arrow flies fast, true and hits like a train.

In addition to the new arrows we also performed a balance pass of the existing workshop bows giving them a much needed damage increase.

Bows have been highly requested for some time, so this release will quench that thirst while providing new strategies for tackling the toughest foe. Happy hunting, prospectors.



Bug Fixes
We are humbled by the amazing response we’ve had to Styx, and in this week's update we’ve included numerous numerous patches and fixes that focus on performance, player experience, memory optimization and balancing. These improve both the core Icarus game and the Styx missions even further.

Read a detailed breakdown in the Detailed Change Log below, but here are some highlights:

• HALCYON: Extermination Mission, tweaked the Cub spawn rate to scale with connected players and prospect difficulty, is now slightly easier as a single player and ramps up with more connected players, added entry for Polar Bear Boss in AI_Growth so we can control the scaling apart from the base Polar bear, added in scaling for Den mother spawn to ramp up level with connected players
  
• RICOCHET Expedition: Fixed the Difficulty scaling pointing to the wrong difficulty setup in the Prospect system, second stage of worms now correctly scales with selected difficulty and connected players
  
• Implement Jaguar, Snow Leopard and Kea skinning bench options
  
• Added scorpion to skinning bench.
  
• Reducing Performance cost of Dropships and buildings as they where performing expensive operations when they did not need to.
  
• Polished landscape at cave entrance, fixed river spline and fish volume, edited floating landscape and voxels around and added cliffs in desert area to correct collision issue, Yellow quad, Styx

Detailed Patch Notes:

• Added BALLISTIC: EXTERMINATION - Dispatch any hostile wildlife in the region to guarantee the safety of the operator's team.
  
• Added RENDEVOUS: DELIVERY - Retrieve the required sample and ensure its safe return to orbit. Note that the sample will be highly sensitive to temperature.
  
• Added Steel Arrows. Implementing Steel Arrow recipe.
  
• Add Larkwell Bow and Arrows to Meta Workshop

Balance/Passes/Revisions:

• Existing workshop bows have been provided with a damage increase (+75% Projectile Damage)
  
• Watermelon now gives twice as much water. Reduced oxygen consumption buff to reduced water consumption instead. Fixed description text and name.
  
• Updated meshes used for Archers, Gatherers and Survival backpacks. Update collision and LODs
  
• Metal Ingots visual redesign - polish pass on textures to give each ingot type a more distinctive look.
  
• Moved oxygen bladder to be closer to Oxite Dissolver in T2 talent tree.
  
• Update Iron and Steel Pickaxe descriptions to better communicate access to higher tiers of ore.
  
• Pass on the Crocodile and Komodo Physics assets to bring them closer to our other animal ragdolls.
  
• Health regen granted to anchored NPCs retreating can now be controlled via a stat. Can now choose whether or not an AI spawned via a BP_ManualAISpawnPoint receives regeneration while retreating, enabled by default, turned this off for some minor enemies in OLY_Omni_Research_2 mission. Anchored NPCs can now teleport directly to their anchor target if they've been blocked for too long, this behaviour is enabled by default for NPCs spawned via BP_ManualAISpawnPoints. Added ability for GOAPAction Blueprints to override the stats granted to the NPC during execution of Action. (Low level NPCs with anchor points are not longer guaranteed health regen when retreating. NPCs with anchor points can now teleport to target if stuck).
  
• Halved attack range of polar bear cubs (6m->3m).
  
• Increase base weapon damage multiplier on Shengong Bows from 1.0 to 1.75x and Larkwell bow from 1.0x to 2.25x to better compare against their base Recurve and Compound Bow equivalents.

Fixes:

• HALCYON: Extermination Mission, tweaked the Cub spawn rate to scale with connected players and prospect difficulty, is now slightly easier as a single player and ramps up with more connected players, added entry for Polar Bear Boss in AI_Growth so we can control the scaling apart from the base Polar bear, added in scaling for Den mother spawn to ramp up level with connected players.
  
• RICOCHET Expedition: Fixed the Difficulty scaling pointing to the wrong difficulty setup in the Prospect system, second stage of worms now correctly scales with selected difficulty and connected players.
  
• Fixed visual issue with workshop unlock requirements for Envirosuit variant ‘XIGO ‘Hark’ S5 Envirosuit’.
  
• Fixed scale (size) for 'Poison Paste' mesh as it was way too big.
  
• Fixed Concrete Furnace crafting time being too quick.
  
• Fixed tooltip in Superfoods to “raw food provides more sustenance”.
  
• Fixed double stacked voxels in transition cave on Styx H5.
  
• Fixed issue where any projectiles attached to cave worms on death were disappearing. They are now placed inside a loot bag. Any projectiles attached to cave worm on death are now removed and placed inside loot bag.
  
• Fixed AI carcass not filling with correct amount of attached projectiles when skinned.
  
• Fixed AI sometimes having attached arrows disappear when its ragdoll froze.
  
• Fixed issue where trying to customize the cosmetics of an offline character would leave the character headless. Fixed issue where any changes made to an offline characters cosmetics after creation wouldn't be saved.
  
• Fixed Thatch Roof buildables not being upgradeable due to not being defined in the BuildingVariationsStructure struct.
  
• IcarusPlayerCharacter now uses CapsuleComponent bounds instead of actor bounds when calculating nearby temperature effect. This fixes the bug where getting a critical shot with a ballistic (explosive) arrow would heat the player up from a distance.
  
• Fixed World Bosses not being visible on map for clients with relevant tracker module or trait. Updated description of stat granted by World Boss tracker module.
  
• Fixed issue where multiple nearby campfires/fireplaces would not grant the Warm and Cozy buff, blocking players from sleeping.
  
• Fixing crocodiles spawning in the incorrect location during Ballistic: Extermination due to an outdated spawn config.
  
• Fixed highlight/interaction prompts being visible while unconscious. Fixed animals unintentionally highlighting briefly when looking at them.
  
• Fixed Concrete Furnace interaction camera clipping through the roof.
  
• Fixed swimming up and down using jump and crouch keybindings.
  
• Fixed various instances of ApplyRadialDamageWithFalloff not using the correct node, and therefore not dealing AOE damage: this includes Sandworm, Sandworm WorldBoss, Smoke grenades, and others. CaveWorms and TeenageCaveWorms were left un-touched as to not affect the balance of missions using them.
  
• Fixed Printed Campfire Destructible mesh materials.
  
• Fixed spelling of Teeming in Styx description.
  
• Fixed issue where the player facing name for STYX was incorrectly names STYX PREVIEW.
  
• Fixed CaveWorms spawning very large for server during RICOCHET: Expedition mission on STYX.

Additions:

• Added Jaguar, Snow Leopard, Scorpion and Kea skinning bench options
  
• Adding in delay so Sol doesn't talk the very second bosses are defeated
  
• Applying water immersion eq to all creature death vocalizations so they filter when they fall under the water. Added preset for immersion
  
• Added Slow and Immobilize resistance stats to all aggressive creatures, based on their size/difficulty/strength. Ranges are from 10% to 50% and up to 100% for Boss creatures

Performance

• Fixing Performance of Deep Vein Ore Deposits as they are where doing many operations that they did not need to be doing
  
• Reducing Performance cost of Dropships and buildings as they where performing expensive operations when they did not need to.
  
• Optimizing Fish so they are no longer use expensive ticks or replication
  
• Memory dependency improvements which will help to reduce the amount of data required to be stored in memory while various elements of the game is running.
  
• Ammo count displayed on UI is now cached instead of being recalculated per frame, improving performance
  
• Improving Performance of Widgets that were Tracking and displaying Survival Variables (Oxygen, Water, Food, Temperature, Shelter) by preventing them from triggering updates in situations when they are not visible or not relevant to the current contextual situation.
  
• Removing various legacy debugging popups for UI elements which were triggering very expensive updates.
  
• Removing unnecessary replication of many elements (WaterBodies, HuntingClues, Rockets, RocketParts and Seats) and preventing smooth sync movement which was not needed

Map changes:

• Polished landscape at cave entrance, fixed river spline and fish volume, edited floating landscape and voxels around and added cliffs in desert area to correct collision issue, Yellow quad, Styx
  
• Bug Fixes, Waterfall fixes, Blending mesh into the landscape, Moving floating voxels Cave Fixes on Green Quad, Styx
  
• Fixed Riverbank Seams, Fixed Floating Cliffs and Fixed Ores Spawning Mid Air, Blue Quad, Styx
  
• General Cliff And Riverbank Fixes And A Decal Pass On The Riverbanks, Blue Quad, Styx
  
• Edited voxels and resources in transition cave, polished decals and foliage, Red quad, Styx
  
• Decal Pass On Riverbanks and Foliage Cleanup, Blue Quad, Styx