[2022] Icarus Week Forty Four Update | Improvements to KILL LIST, HEADSTONE and more

A lil somethin somethin: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page here.

We’re following on with the second of our Early Missions Revamps, this time addressing six more early Olympus missions.

STRANGE HARVEST, HEADSTONE and KILL LIST have received large scale improvements, focusing on mission flow and player experience. This incorporates new features added to the game since we first made these missions such as more creatures in the spawn pool.

AGRICULTURE, VOYAGER and FORSAKEN have received smaller updates to improve the player experience.

Also below is an insight into the next big features coming to Icarus. We’ll keep sharing details as we work towards bringing them into the game.



STRANGE HARVEST Revamp
STRANGE HARVEST: Bio-Research has received a welcome rework to improve the mission flow and player experience, using new systems and changes we created for Styx’s missions.

Players are now tasked to investigate toxins in the designated area and track down the original source, while previously the mission required players to collect bio-samples for the Sinotai faction.

The UDA will provide some poison paste to help you with your mission and a new dropship location closer to your objective.

The mission now provides new challenges and quests, so be careful to not take it for granted. Proper preparation is strongly advised.



HEADSTONE and KILL LIST
HEADSTONE and KILL LIST have also been addressed, with improved player experience and UI across both while keeping the quest line consistent.

KILL LIST requires you to tackle a Wolf Pack and its Alpha Wolf Leader, so our focus has been on improving this phase of the mission.

• Wolf packs now spawn at clue locations, with their levels scaled more accurately to the selected difficulty
  
• Wolf packs anchored behaviors have been altered so the pack stays with 1000 meters of its spawn zone
  
• Map icons for interactable targets are added when players reach a clue location
  
• Quest clue locations have been reorganized so players won’t have to ‘backtrack’ away from the final target
  
• We’ve added map prompts for the quest objectives

We’ve streamlined HEADSTONE, which requires you to deploy and defend Uplink stations.

• The drop location has been moved closer to mission objectives
  
• Survey equipment is now contained within the dropship to streamline mission setup and remove the opportunity for unexpected collision issues with the care package
  
• AI now responds more aggressively to transmitters, and has been rebalanced with more creature variety in the spawn pool
  
• Mission items are now correctly tagged as quest items
  
• Transmitter Health and Progress are now displayed as quest steps
  
• Added more spawn points near Survey deployment locations for attacking creatures

Other Missions
Three other missions have also received small updates and improvements.

AGRICULTURE: Supply Stockpile’s mission requirements will now scale more accurately with the selected difficulty

VOYAGER: Recovery has received a fix for the den intractability and reload issues

FORSAKEN: Recovery will now identify items as quest items



Future Updates
The next large feature in the pipeline is Open World Mode. We get frequent community requests for more persistent base building and progression in Icarus like traditional open world survival games. At the same time we also want to retain Icarus' unique session-based mission structure. So, we’re looking to add another game mode.

Open World Mode will be a more traditional survival sandbox experience, giving you access to the entire Olympus or Styx map with no time limit and with all your progress persisting. Unlike Outposts mode, your character would earn experience and level up. You can drop into your own selected locations and return as often as you please, and engage with respawning world bosses while establishing your presence on the surface. You will still be able to play missions as a way to earn Exotics and permanent workshop items by jumping back to the main menu and launching them from there. More details to come in the following weeks.

Dedicated Servers have also made progress, with a range of technical issues and small edge cases complete, but a few outstanding gameplay impacts to be addressed. Large Scale internal and external testing is close.



Changelog v1.2.19.102260
Mission Revamps

• Scaled AGRICULTURE: Supply Stockpile mission objectives with selected difficulty. Slightly reduced hunting shipment requirements on normal difficulty
  
• Killlist mission - Mature Pack Wolfs now spawn at clue locations, their levels scale by selected difficulty
  
• Killlist mission - Adding new Mature Pack Wolf Epic Creature Spawn Config
  
• Killlist mission - Adding new Pack Wolf Anchored Behaviour with a distance of 1000 so it stays very close to its spawn zone
  
• Killlist mission - When reaching a clue location, a map icon appears to show the exact interact target
  
• Killlist mission - Shifting Quest Clue locations so the quest no longer requires back tracking when moving towards quest objectives
  
• Killlist mission - Slightly tweaked multiplayer scaling on follower wolves and Alpha wolf
  
• Killlist mission - Adding Map prompts to quest objectives
  
• Headstone Mission - Updating Drop Location so it is closer to the mission objectives
  
• Headstone Mission - Survey equipment is now contained on the players ship
  
• Headstone Mission - AI now get angry and charges at the transmitter
  
• Headstone Mission - Rebalanced AI which spawns and added more variety
  
• Headstone Mission - Fixed Map markers so they reload correctly mid mission
  
• Headstone Mission - Transmitter Health and Progress are now displayed as quest steps
  
• Headstone Mission - Mission items are now correctly tagged as quest items
  
• Headstone Mission - Replaced Crate with Supply pod when picking up transmitter
  
• Headstone Mission - Added Manual Spawn points near Survey Deployment locations
  
• Strange Harvest Mission - Changed Drop Point Location to add variation to early mission drop point locations
  
• Strange Harvest Mission - Changed Entire Mission Flow, players now investigate toxins within an area eventually tracking down the source
  
• Strange Harvest Mission - Adding new Contaminated Bear Creature with Anchored Behaviour, includes new materials, fur and particles
  
• Strange Harvest Mission - Adding 3 new mission items (Flora, Digested Biomatters and a Bioweapon sample)
  
• Strange Harvest Mission - Adjusting all objective locations to reduce player travel distance and backtracking
  
• Strange Harvest Mission - Updated quest logic to use new systems present in styx, decremented beta weekend quest systems, fixing search area and map icon reloading
  
• Strange Harvest Mission - Adding new Delivery Quest Markers and Droppod / Crashed Ship Variations
  
• Strange Harvest Mission - Updating Quest Objectives and Mission breifing
  
• Strange Harvest Mission - Adding new Map Icon for Contaiminated Bear
  
• Strange Harvest Mission - Adding Delivery Step to Quest for collected items
  
• Killlist Mission - Search area narrows down as you find each clue.
  
• Killlist Mission - Increased tether range on follower wolves
  
• Headstone Mission, fixed typo in quest step.
  
• Heastone Mission, ensured AI stop spawning if transmitter is disabled.
  
• Headstone Mission, fixed issues causing quest progress to be lost after completion.
  
• Headstone Mission, changed spawn location to be closer to mission objectives
  
• Strange Harvest Mission - Adding Contaminated Bear Corpse and tooltip
  
• Strange Harvest Mission - Fixing Bioweapon not spawning in correct container & Delivery not checking correct container
  
• Updating reward from 50 -> 85 for Strange Harvest Mission
  
• Headstone Mission - Extending Creature Teathers to allow more nautral creature movements

Fixed

• Fixed rotation on railing snap position for glass floors which was causing railings to be at 90 degree angles
  
• Delete a bunch of unused DataTable content which is causing assets to be unnecessarily loaded (taking up memory resources and increasing build size) and clutter content
  
• Added text to clarify water requirement on crafting windows for cement mixer, biofuel composter and electric composter
  
• Fixed another bug with juvenile mounts disappearing when reloading a prospect; Freeze/Unfreeze functionality for IcarusNPCCharacters now stops all movement before freezing, and uses only the character capsule component for TerrainAnchor bounds
  
• Added water connections to Masonry and Electric Masonry benches which increases processing speed when satisfied
  
• Adjust Sandbanks LOD material roughness to fix inconsistency with base material
  
• Ensure that the activation of the thermal component stays in step with (graphical) light activation, this means that players get a temperature buff when wood rag torch is equipped in light slot (as well as in hand)
  
• Improve Scorpion Physics Asset to be more accurate by adding more smaller capsules to better encapsulate the mesh. Gaps between capsules meant projectiles could pass through without hit
  
• Adjust equation for mammoth and elephant stomp knockback velocity, this means that large mammoth boss and elephants should no longer be able to knock players out of the map [Bug] Hurled across map by Mammoth to out-of-bounds area and killed, losing all equipment - SurviveIcarus
  
• Mounts and Juveniles can now eat / drink from troughs that are off the navmesh
  
• Fixed an issue preventing Heavy Glass Windows from being reinforced using a water connection, slighly reduced heatlh of these so when reinfoced they have the same health as the wall itself
  
• Prevent graphics settings from being applied before the graphics subsystem is ready, this means that resolution scaling works correctly (when DLSS/FSR are switched off
  
• Fixed issue causing the water trough to be labelled as Storage and gaining the Expanded alteration.
  
• Added level scaling for Mammoths and Elephants, resulting in significantly increased health and minor increases to damage.
  
• Fixed instance of Juveniles getting destroyed upon prospect reload. Removed code that was automatically cleaning up 'stuck' NPCs if they hadn't moved from their original spawn location 15s after spawn
  
• Removed 'Set' ItemsStatic entries from ValidAmmoTypes DT accidentally added in during data update, allowing the Workshop consumable stacks to be fired directly from the weapon.
  
• Added DT Validation to prevent unwanted items being added in to ValidAmmoTypes DT
  
• Added recipe to craft Bone from Mammoth Tusks at the Cooking Station.
  
• Overflow bags generated when player respawns no longer simulate physics to prevent cases where they fall through the world
  
• Reduced threshold for tames to get hungry and thirsty.
  
• Fixed stat assignment on the Hunger modifier pointing to an incorrect stat.
  
• Revert sRGB setting on map textures which have not been brightened up via art pass, causing them to appear too dark

Future Content

• Updated CAC maps for IceCave Pillars, Ice Stalagtites and Stalagmites
  
• Added foliage type and blueprints for tundra bush assets
  
• Added Foliage type and Blueprints for Tundra Sapling assets. Updated FLod Data table with tundra foliage
  
• Decals painting and cliff placement in arctic Blue Quad , DLC
  
• Adding in WIP fur assets for the Bat dog for fur creation
  
• T2 Mission Communication Device - mesh, textures, materials added
  
• Painted Decals Volcanic Area & Added Cliffs to Base of Macros Volcanic Area on Purple Quad, DLC Map
  
• Allowed the Shoot the Breeze talent to use the Material Processor as well as Mortar and Pestle
  
• T2 Mission Communication Device - added DM, minor revisions to mesh and textures
  
• Painted Decals Volcanic Area, Added Cliffs to Base of Macros Volcanic Area & Added on to Transition Cave on Purple Quad, DLC Map
  
• Submitting Batdog, Batdog carcass, respective textures and fur
  
• Adding Pbird wing flaps sounds, events and anim notifiers
  
• Added Cliffs & Stalagmites to Transition Cave from SW to AC, Swapped Out RVT with NORVT on Blue Quad, DLC Map
  
• Landscape Painting, Decal Pass and Cliff Placement, Green Quad, DLC
  
• LC to SW Transition Cave Set Dressing, Purple Quad, Prometheus
  
• Added Arrowhead Plant, Bog Flower, and Cypress Sapling as foliage types, BPs, and also added all to the FLOD Data Table