Icarus Week 156 Update | 3 years of Icarus, and cake!

This week, we’re celebrating Icarus' third anniversary.

Now a toddler, Icarus has grown a lot over the last 156 weeks. We thought we’d do a quick look back and then celebrate with some cake and a full-day livestream and a bunch of giveaways.

Hop in, have a read, and then get baking.

Originally posted by Jake Dondunski, Project Lead: Thank you for all of your support over the last few years as we have endeavored to shape Icarus into the game we know it can be. A truly immersive survival game. We want to keep working on it, making it better, fixing bugs, improving performance and adding new content. As long as people are playing we will keep developing.

Leave a review to show your support, it really helps us out.

Jake Dodunski - Project Lead

Notable Improvements:

• Improved Weather Culling inside buildings after improvements from a few weeks ago
  
• Fixed the Dropship scorch setup, it was so tiny it couldn't be seen and dropships where not culling foliage when they should.
  
• Fire Extinguisher and Flamethrower can now be repaired with the right click context menu

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This Week: 3 Years of Icarus
After 3 years of Icarus, where we have released a free update every week for 156 weeks and counting, we’re taking a moment to look back and celebrate how far we’ve come.

We released Icarus with the intent for it to be a live-service-like game with a unique take on the survival genre. Our vision was for a fresh session every mission, providing bite-sized, tense, and challenging survival experiences.

We think everyone, including us, would agree it was a rocky launch. The game wasn’t in the state we needed it to be, so we committed ourselves to improving the game bit by bit until it could become what we wanted and the players deserved. This is how the weekly patches were born.

While the mission-based game concept was unique and many people liked it, the demand for persistent drops was overwhelming and we decided to shift focus and provide the core survival game experience that people were craving and Open World mode was born.

With Open World becoming our most popular game mode, we still wanted to provide people with the mission experience we had created as we felt people were missing out on a lot of content, and thus, SMPL3 quests were born. These small dynamic quests could be completed for small amounts of Ren, and have become a staple of the Icarus experience.

To take it one step further, we started converting over our missions and, with the release of New Frontiers, allowed full-length missions (called Operations) to be playable in a persistent Open World. This was then rolled out for free on the other maps of Olympus and Styx.

As we end our 3rd year, we have so many awesome new things on the horizon, with an unannounced expansion (more to come), new epic quest lines that result in persistent changes to your world that culminate in a boss fight, a biolab with a range of upgradeable weapons to craft and use and finally, the Dangerous Horizons expansion, where you will explore a brand new map with new flora and fauna and possibly even NPCs.

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This Week: 3 Years Breakdown
As with every anniversary, we thought we’d share some numbers to symbolize the incredible transformation Icarus has gone under since its launch.

Well, we’ve come a wee way since then.

There are now 57 total Operations + Missions after launching with 35. We also have 10 maps, including 7 Outposts, totaling 199 square kilometers of the playable area.

Back in 2021, we launched with 140+ craftable items. That number now stands at 1763, an 11.6x increase, averaging 11.3 new items a week!

Finally, let’s look at some numbers from our players.

In total, you have played 75,227,886 hours of Icarus (as of today).

That’s 3,134,495 and a half days.

Or more impressively, 8,567.66 YEARS.

If we look back at planet Earth that many years ago, the world was in the Neolithic period and most communities were still hunter/gatherers. There were roughly 5 million people on Earth, and humans were yet to invent agriculture or even the pottery wheel.

But what about 8567 light years away from Earth? Well… The Hubble telescope has found a habitable ‘super-earth’ roughly 8000 light years away, orbiting a pair of stars[exoplanets.nasa.gov]. Sounds like somewhere that could do with some terraforming for human habitation…

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This Week: New Mission UI
This week, we updated the mission selection UI. The old one had become quite cluttered as we added things over the years. So, we’ve cleaned this up and also tidied the mission trees to provide a better experience going forward.

One of the big changes is the layout of the STYX mission tree. We have adjusted this so it reflects more of a left-to-right style like the Olympus and Prometheus trees.

We have also removed many of the Exploration Missions. These missions were superfluous after the inclusion of Open World mode, which provided a better experience where you can do Exotic Extraction, Missions, Operations, and SMPL3 quests. Exploration missions were used mainly for exotic extraction, but after talking with the community, we have decided to keep the SPIRIT WALK mission at the end of the OLYMPUS tree; as we know, this has been a popular one for some players.

You may also notice that many of the mission suffixes have been removed. When we first added these, they accurately reflected the type of mission that it was. As time has gone on, our missions have become more complicated and incorporate many of the types. So, in lieu of the suffixes, we have now icons in the mission UI which you can hover over to see what is involved in the mission.

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This Week: Cake
In the words of Marie-Antoinette, ‘Let them eat cake.’

In celebration of 3 years of Icarus, we’re adding a new cake recipe. The cake is unique because it is meant to be shared. Once crafted, you can place it on a surface like a deployable and then pick up the pieces individually so they can be eaten.

We currently have three types: Chocolate, Coconut, and Carrot. These can all be crafted on the Electric Stove and require sugar, flour, eggs, oil, milk, and water, as well as their respective unique ingredients.

Their modifiers boast a large boost to max health and stamina and their regeneration, as well as an experience boost.

We hope you bake some cake and celebrate with us!

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This Week: Twitch Livestream
Alongside Cake, we’re also doing a full-day live stream from the studio, featuring people from all our different teams.

Come join the developers on Twitch[twitch.tv] as we answer questions, play Icarus, and do some spot giveaways, including keys for Icarus, the New Frontiers expansion, and our Pet Companions DLC.

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This Week: Icarus Suit in Stationeers
This week, another one of the games in the Rocketwerkz family has added an Icarus suit which you will get access to for free if you own both Icarus and Stationeers.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/544550/Stationeers/

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Next Week: Shaggy Zebra Mounts
Next week, we are adding a new Mount to the game for players to find and tame in Prometheus Arctic Regions. As always, these juveniles will be aggressively protected by their parents, so don’t pat unless you’ve dealt with the threat first.

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Your support makes these updates possible.
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/40692/Icarus_Pets_Bundle/

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/35727/Icarus_Complete_the_Set/

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Changelog v2.2.31.130582
New Content [expand type=details expanded=false]

• Adding New UI for Prospect Select
  
• Adding Mission Types, their images and new table to define, removed icon from faction missions table as they are no longer used, adjusted mission tree some more and fixed some BP errors
  
• Fixing issue where the Mission selection would become inactive and unable to be clicked because of the new UI
  
• More small changes to Mission UI
  
• Add new mission type categories and categorized all prospects
  
• Reorganized Prospect tree slightly
  
• Changed default mission widget so default is the collapsed widget
  
• Update tooltips and open/close functionality on Prospect UI
  
• Fix typo in Infrasonic Relay Upgrade string
  
• Unlocking Cake & Recipes
  
• Added a mid section to Mission widget so that animation doesn't cause texture to stretch when hovered over
  
• Added Boss, Fishing and Exotic Mission Icons
  
• Tidying UI for New Mission Widget
  
• Removing subtitles from mission names
  
• Removing all exploration missions except for Spirit Walk

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Fixed [expand type=details expanded=false]

• Fixing the Calf Head Loot as it was currently scaling allowing 2 heads from one calf when skinning
  
• Initialize WeatherCulling setup differently (same as RVTBlocker) to hopefully fix issues some players are seeing with different connection combinations
  
• Remove dismount text from dropship seats
  
• Prevent punching when seated
  
• Fixing an issue where when using two different resource types for one recipe (in this case milk and water) it would cause a crash
  
• Fix Dropship scorch setup being barely visible (more opacity + larger). Tweak scorch texture to be centered and more opaque at centre. Add RVT blocker to simulate burnt away foliage. Timeout and actor removal after 2 mins
  
• Add 'indestructible' tag to player fists so that Dropship doesn't attempt to destroy them
  
• Allow Fire Extinguisher and Flamethrower to be repaired with right click menu
  
• Prevent Fire Extinguisher and Flamethrower from being destroyed when reaching 0 durability
  
• Increased damage that Fire Extinguisher and Flamethrower take slightly
  
• Increased Fire Extinguisher hit range by 50%
  
• Refactor building weather culling to be another simple mesh instead of dynamically created one, due to transform accuracy limitations causing the system to fail on angled pieces.
  
• Update transform on all major base pieces to suit. Automatically update for different damage states. Add cheat to visualize mesh for debugging
  
• Reversed order of prospect type icons
  
• Fix flamethrower light being toggled by opening/closing inventory (inherited SetVisibility from playerchar) by gating with local WantOn variable
  
• Fixed bug where naturally spawning juveniles (moa, buffalo, etc) could be tamed without dealing with their parent first
  
• Add MetaData to Rifle Equip anim which is expecting this data and produces a warning without (does have a default fallback which was being used)
  
• Changed String linking for mission difficulty text to not require multiple strings that are the same
  
• Add translatable text to mission difficulty and modifiers title on load screen
  
• Update Splint displayed recipe in blueprint tree
  
• COMPOSITION: Fixed Aerosol Emitter Highlight being incorrect string
  
• Updated scaling on Orbital Exchange mounts window, to ensure longer strings fit in the same area
  
• Shrink thickness of Building Ramp weather culling mesh to hopefully help with weather leaking
  
• Reducing the amount of times you hear the wolves howl as it can become excessive during long playthroughs. This needed to be done by reducing the amount the animation is played because the audio is linked to it

[/expand]

Future Content [expand type=details expanded=false]

• Adding item icon for the pitchfork
  
• Rock golem spawner - added more mesh to close undersides in case it is exposed when placed
  
• Adding Brutalist Square Lamp Setup, Icon and Recipe
  
• Clean up pass on Ice Mammoth dialogue FMOD events
  
• Fix the navmesh for the Swamp Ape Arena
  
• Fixed issue with Radio Communication device so it does not shift the players view to the connected device when interacted with
  
• Lots of updates and additions to the swamp ape. Unique travel and impact audio events, unique pickup rock and throw rock audio, volal adjustments and spacial adjustments
  
• Add initial implementation data for Pitchfork
  
• Fixing Cave lighting issue, using origional atmosphere curves
  
• Updated DC Cave Prefab Switchback
  
• Commiting updates for some Biomass materials
  
• Added textures and Materials for Rock_Golem Gauntlet
  
• Added in 3RD person armor setup for the gauntlet and all the individual SM pieces for attaching, 1ST person and DT hookup into new weapon setup to follow
  
• New cave type biome added for Great Hunts
  
• Workaround some issues with using FLOD actors in instanced levels
  
• Cliff Pass and Decal Pass on Scree slopes, Green and Yellow Quads, Elysium
  
• Lots more ape notifiers and tweaks to events. Better start of rock flying audio etc
  
• second pass on Ape spawners (desert and forest versions)
  
• Removed Random Pillar in Great Ape Arena
  
• Adjusted the materials and textures of the ice mammoth spears to match those of the ice mammoth armor and shield
  
• Unique Ballistic/Payload setup for Slug Grenade
  
• Updated chocolate cake BP so all pieces have the correct material asssigned
  
• Adding dialogue entries for Ape and Mammoth quests
  
• Lots more ape additions. Shorter roar for attacks, adding ape idle scratch sniff and adjustments to timings of notifys etc
  
• Adding Ice Mammoth Great Hunt Mission Setup
  
• Explicitly destroy any actors with FLOD components when leaving an instanced level
  
• Changed colours for Creature currencies under Meta Currency datatable
  
• Added subtitles for Quarrite GH tree
  
• Added assets for new mission UI
  
• Adding Dialogue Row to Interactable notes table so when the notes are read if there is associated audio it can play
  
• Added a collectable notes subsystem which binds to events when notes are picked up or read
  
• Fixing issue where notes where off by one, displaying text and header of the wrong note
  
• Clean up Ape mission dialogue events
  
• first pass on great ape desert spawner
  
• Adding Chick Head & Trophy Items
  
• Fixed Garganutan E mission objective list
  
• Rework of crystal column material, increased DF shadow bias on column SMs
  
• reimported biomass container textures at 2K, set to large texture group
  
• Update Garganutan E mission to not require crafting the device
  
• Lots of additions and fine tunes to the ape audio. Adding additional vocalisation scream
  
• Setup Lab Desk deployable
  
• Added subtitles for Rimetusk GH tree
  
• Fix recipe for Brutalist Square Lamp
  
• Fix Brutalist Square Lamp material assignment
  
• Setup Research Equipment blueprints
  
• Submitting Biomes and Atmos file for Golem Arena
  
• Fix the build (WITH_EDITOR) round three
  
• Fix the build (WITH_EDITOR defines) - for realsies this time
  
• Cliff Pass Blockout on Yellow Quad, Elysium
  
• Fix the build (WITH_EDITOR defines)
  
• Updated Nav Blocked on Outpost 9, on Red Quad
  
• Added explosion VFX for Slug Grenade
  
• Ice Mammoth - Removed chance for ranged attacks (will now always try)
  
• fixed bug where mammoth would fly into the sky because of bat attacks
  
• added scaling health/armor stats the same as the rock golem
  
• Removed crit spot while the ice armor is on
  
• Reduced the amount of damage a crit does
  
• Bird swarm (each bird will attack a random player for more distribution)
  
• Ice kick while in the regeneration phase will now target a random player rather than its target
  
• Added a 0.5+/- delay to the ice pillar rising
  
• Added godmode to the mammoth when it starts until its ready to attack and during its regeneration phase
  
• Elysium - geothermal lake set dressing, testing of volumetric fog in red quad
  
• Cliff Pass, Scree Slope Pass on Green and Yellow Quads, Elysium
  
• Great Ape now breaks Ponga trees and spawns logs. Tidy up idle loco animation. Change when rocks are spawned during animation to stop Ape damaging itself
  
• Adding flask rattle and microscope audio for the lab items
  
• Updated Lighting in the Rock Golem Arena
  
• Fix Ashlands first note playing audio when collected
  
• Added entry for the note in Rimetusk OPT1 mission
  
• Fixed a small typo in the name of one of our Rimetusk missions
  
• Added subtitles for Garganutan GH tree
  
• Replace cascade FXs with niagara systems on Frag and Smoke grenade, improve particle spawning on smoke grenade and performance pass on systems
  
• Adding centrifuge spin and lid audio and notify
  
• Poison Spot - Remove prototype mesh and decal with wrong projection angle to fix POM artefacts
  
• Setup Garganutan mission C
  
• Create unique actionable data for Pitchfork so anims work better
  
• Updates and fine tunes to ape notifiers for audio
  
• Update Slug Grenade payload to spawn a goo puddle near explosion site
  
• Added the various additional RockGolem armour skins
  
• RockGolem now changes it's armour skin after eating rocks, also applies relevant modifier and enables trail when rolling
  
• Re-enabled RockGolem IK
  
• RockGolem IK is now correctly disabled when walking and has a shorter trace distance when active
  
• Renamed NPCTrailComponent_Slug to NPCTrailComponent_OverlapModifier and made some changes to make it more generic
  
• Removed debug skeleton/rifle from RockGolem arena map
  
• Updated Shovel skeletons
  
• Remove RVT and atmosphere controller from Swamp Ape arena
  
• Updated Crystal Not showing in the Rock Golem Arena again
  
• Add Farm railings
  
• Increased Unique Associated Members from 50 -> 60 for prospects
  
• Added Ape Research Equipment icons
  
• Updated physics for Tactical Shovel
  
• Reverting Golem Arena biome affliction
  
• Adjusting DEV prospects mission tree to fit with new style
  
• Tidying OLY, STYX, PROM Mission Tree Layouts
  
• Updated Crystal Not showing in the Rock Golem Arena
  
• Fixed a typo in the GH dialogue
  
• Updated collisions forBiomass items
  
• Remove fuel from Great Hunt Device
  
• Fixing NOVA Station Name so it can be translated
  
• Great Ape can now find and pickup logs to fight with (different loco and attacks). He currently can't put the log back down
  
• Adjustments to hammerhead slug boss slime volumes, spacializer settings and max instances to account for a million slime balls to stop all audio channels being used up
  
• Ice Mammoth - Removed debug logging
  
• Added a missing word to the Rimetusk bestiary entry lore
  
• Small adjustments to volume and spacializer settings for the lab items
  
• Add correct burnt tree R_T1 mesh for AspenVar1, fixing crash in Ely
  
• Fix T021 Developer level setup (was uncategorized) and level BP setup (bools should be true)
  
• Elysium - geothermal lake set dressing,cliff and macro placement in red quad
  
• Enabled distant field shadows, and light source shape changes to Great Hunt Deployable
  
• Initial lighting added for Great Hunt Deployable
  
• Tweaks and improvements to final RockGolem phase
  
• Fixed RockGolem not immediately transitioning to final phase after reaching health threshold
  
• RockGolem now becomes temporarily invulnerable at the beginning of each new combat phase
  
• Shortened duration of RockGolem heavy hit react montage
  
• Made Visual Tweaks to Mission UI. Added Gradient, scanlines, typography changes and alignment
  
• Scree Slope Decal pass and Decal pass on cliffs in the ground, Green Quad, Elysium
  
• Initial implementation of Barn Doors
  
• Cliff Pass Blockout on Yellow Quad, Elysium
  
• Adding Cheat for spawning AI Spawners to help test the Rock Golem Dens
  
• Added WIP first implementation of final RockGolem fight phase
  
• Swapped out RockGolem voxel rocks to use new material/mesh
  
• Removed RVT volumes from level
  
• Added new IcarusAnimNotify_PlayerCharacterMontageNotify which calls delegate on owning IcarusCharacter when fired
  
• Re-worked the way BT_Basic_JumpTo works, now relies on new BP_JumpLerpComponent instead of functionality existing in Mount_Base BP
  
• Added new BT_Basic_JumpTo_Attack, which is similar to it's parent with an added notify-based attack event
  
• Updated RockGolem arena navigation
  
• Disabled static lighting support in RockGolem arena
  
• 3rd pass on Ape spawners (desert and forest versions)
  
• Fixing infinite loop in Rock Golem Spawner when spawning juveniles
  
• Ice Mammoth - Ice pillars now only apply aura modifier when finished coming out of the ground
  
• Aura no longer escalates but now has 2x the damage (10 +/- 5 every 1 sec instead of 2)
  
• Arena blizzard now starts on level startup
  
• Added Farm Railing and Farm Gate icons
  
• Adding in full setup for golem gauntlet including 1st person and 3rd person armor based mesh setups and relavent sockets, some tweaks needed to combine the bracket parts of the meshes and offset probelms being addressed
  
• Great Ape jump attack
  
• Adding audio to the farm fence gates animations
  
• Show damage numbers when Great Ape knocks over Ponga
  
• Update Great Hunt widget visuals on NOVA device
  
• Great Ape hit reactions
  
• When great ape has found and is carrying a log, there is now a chance the log will break on heavy melee (club) attacks
  
• Added light animations and vfx to Great Hunt Device
  
• Update pin (changed in 2022...) for AISetup struct in AutomationTestAISpawner BP which started randomly complaining when playing in Oly
  
• Adding ape grab tree audio event and notify and tree whoosh audio and event
  
• Tweak rocks and trees for Great Ape (and a bit of a refactor). Begin climbing anim loco
  
• Adding in setup for Sandworm crossbow including new character socket to sit the crossbow properly and lining up the reload for the crossbow with our existing one, one or two minor bugs related to showing the bolt etc and javelin hookup still pending but weapon working otherwise
  
• Elysium - geothermal lake set dressing,cliff and macro placement in red quad
  
• Adjustments to rock golem armor break off audio event
  
• Moved lights to outlook and points of interest, added ambient light
  
• When Great Ape is using a tree as a club, ensure it breaks on the fourth hit (with random chance of break on each hit)
  
• Cliff Pass, Decal Pass on Scree Slopes and Added new Foliage Spawner, Green and Yellow Quads, Elysium
  
• Did a pass on Woolly Zebra movement speed (mount, juvie, regular)
  
• Fixed bug where Woolly Zebra juvie couldn't be tamed
  
• Improvements to Woolly Zebra locomotion blend space(s)
  
• Update Great Hunt widget visuals on NOVA device
  
• First Scree Slope Pass Done & Cliff Pass Blockout on Yellow Quad, Elysium
  
• Great Hunt Boss portraits added to Great Hunt Bench UI
  
• Added dynamic light material to RockGolem arena geode point lights
  
• Increased intensity, length, and duration of RockGolem trail
  
• RockGolem trail is now coloured based on current armour modifier
  
• Limit draw distance on WorldObject meshes. 500m as some of these can be quite large
  
• Splines now scale 100-200m draw distance. Also apply to IcarusSplineMesh
  
• Remove debug logging from plots
  
• Elysium - geothermal lake set dressing, red quad
  
• More ape additions. Adjustments to notifys, adding heavy slam audiuo event etc
  
• Updated Textures and glass material on Great Hunt Device
  
• Added lights to RockGolem trail particle
  
• RockGolem health is now set to 50% directly when beginning last phase (instead of adding x health)
  
• Added a new cut down version of RockGolem heavy hit react to play when getting stunned out of it's rolling attack
  
• Removing profiling sessions. Fix to ambience weather layers that did not randomize start location of playback of file causing oddities. Setting up ready for Hail weather. Subtler internal rain with high tier building to better match progression and assets
  
• Setup Garganutan base. Decals now have the functionality to expire with a small chance in weather
  
• Upped Door albedo texture resolution to 2k for most doors (decreased from 4k for Brick version) for texel consistency/quality
  
• Remove debug log from WeatherEventTimeline that shouldn't have remained
  
• Hide RecommendedObjects UMG widget from Escape Menu while in Space as there are no on-planet objects to display. Same method used as hiding the Party widget
  
• Added rooster talent icon
  
• Elysium - geothermal lake set dressing, red quad
  
• Outpost 13 - Initial map and WorldData setup
  
• Adding Account Flag for Drill arrows and hooking up blueprint and recipe
  
• Adding hail individual scatter plops and hail loop. Adding to ambiences
  
• Decal pass on scree slopes, Green Quad, Elysium
  
• Cliff Pass Blockout on Yellow Quad, Elysium

[/expand]