[2023] Icarus Week Seventy Two Update | New explosive bullets and improved recipes

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

Week Seventy Two is here and brings a revamp of our bullet recipes and the introduction of our first explosive bullets.

Craftable at level 30, explosive bullets add a new variation for your firearms, with the new ‘Volatile Material’ resource introduced to create the recipe, and usable across rifles, pistols and shotguns.

We’ve also added ‘Ammo Casings’ to the bullet recipe requirements, giving players 5x more bullets per ingot invested.

Finally, we’ve deployed even more elements to our Fishing and Bestiary features in the upcoming Galileo, as we draw ever closer to its release.

Jump in and have a read.



Bullet Recipe Revamp
We’ve revamped our bullet recipes in lieu of our introduction of Explosive Bullets, to provide a more granular and realistic resource investment that decreases the cost-per-bullet overall.

This includes a new item, ‘Ammo Casings’ which are crafted using Iron Ingots.

Ammo Casings come in stacks of five, at the cost of a single Iron Ingot. This changes the flow from:

OLD: 1 Iron Ingot → 1 Bullet
NEW: 1 Iron Ingot → 5 Ammo Casings → 5 Bullets.

For specific recipes, this replaces the use of an ingot to create a single bullet, to give ammo casings, giving you 5x as many bullets per ingot invested. To balance this out, rifles now take two gunpowder opposed to one, to offset the cost reduction in ingots.

The only difference is Shotgun Buckshots, which now have the recipe:

OLD: 1 Copper Ingot + 6 Gunpowder + 1 Epoxy = 1 Shotgun Buckshot
NEW: 1 Ammo Casing + 5 Copper Nail + 6 Gunpowder + 1 Epoxy = 1 Shotgun Buckshot.

Explosive Bullets
Explosive Bullets have been added to the ammo pool and can be used across Pistols, Rifles and Shotguns.

Explosive Bullets have slightly reduced projectile damage, but make up for it with a lot of explosive damage that is dealt in a radius with a falloff. Potentially hitting multiple targets within the radius. See their breakdown below.

Pistol Explosive Round: 50 Projectile Damage, 200 Explosive Damage, 400 Radius
Rifle Explosive Round: 200 Projectile Damage, 300 Explosive Damage, 500 Radius
Shotgun Explosive Round: 20 Projectile Damage, 50 Explosive Damage, 350 Radius

This recipe is restricted until you reach level 30, and can be crafted at the machining bench.

This requires a new resource, Volatile Material. This has its own recipe of 2x Gunpowder, 2x Oxite and 2x Spoiled Plants, which can be applied on top of a standard bullet to craft the explosive variant.

Volatile Material can be crafted at the Mortar & Pestle or Chemistry Bench, but is only volatile for 10 minutes, and must be used in crafting an item such as explosive bullets within that timeframe to keep its potency.

We’ve also updated the Frag Grenade Recipe to account for this new resource. Instead of 10x Gunpowder it now uses 2x Volatile Substances, a more accurate reflection of a realistic recipe.

In addition explosive damage and the radius of explosions are now completely stat driven and is now visible on the Grenade & Larkwell Explosive Arrow, Damage has also been adjusted.

Grenade
OLD: 200 Explosive Damage, 1500 Radius
NEW: 1000 Explosive Damage, 1500 Radius

Larkwell Ballistic Arrow
OLD: 200 Explosive Damage, 500 Radius
NEW: 300 Explosive Damage, 500 Radius

We also adjusted Grenades of all types to now stack to 5.

We’ve also tweaked the blueprints in the blueprints tree for guns and ammo, rearranging the order slightly and adjusting the Incendiary Rounds blueprint to no longer be exclusive to rifles but include pistols as well.



Galileo Progress
Galileo is drawing ever closer, and this week's work has been on adding more elements to the features we’ve discussed before.

Fishing has received a few more species, giving players, even more to catch, record, and display. We’ve also been iterating on the Fishing minigame mechanics and revisiting the spawn maps to polish up the experience.

The Bestiary has also received a UX pass, and we’ve iterated on the UI while adding an extra feature for players.

Finally, we’ve been testing our Steam Trading Cards in the Steam dev environment, alongside setting up the achievements for localization.



Changelog v1.2.47.109887 New Content

• Upping Grenade Damage
  
• Explosive damage now triggers a radial damage event in code incorperating player stats / talents / equipment for explosive damage stat increases rather than relying on BP flat value damage payloads
  
• Added new stat for explosive damage radius which controls the spread of the explosion
  
• Adding Grenade as a projectile type so its explosive damage can be scaled based on player talents after the shift from explosive damage to code rather than the payload BP
  
• Adjusting damage function library to take into account the new functionality of the explosive damage type
  
• Adding explosive damage stats to the different explosive damage types so they can be clearly seen in popups & used for damage calculation
  
• Payloads are now passed the projectiles damage stat container for any required cosmetic effects
  
• Add Explosive Shotgun Shells, ballistic setups and icons
  
• Add Slug Shotgun Shells, ballistic setups and icons
  
• Add Pistol Incendiary Rounds, ballistic setups and icons
  
• Add Pistol Explosive Rounds, ballistic setups and icons
  
• Unify meshable entries for ammo to use single ammo box entry instead of duplicating unnecessarily
  
• Add partial implementation of Armor Piercing Pistol and Rifle rounds
  
• Add additional supporting effects for new ammo types
  
• Update icons for existing ammo types for consistency and readability
  
• Fixed LOD and collision setups on some ammo meshes
  
• Fixing Ammo Casing Recipe Values
  
• Adding Explosive Rifle Rounds to Rifles Valid Ammo Types
  
• Updating Ammo Casing and Volatile Substance Talents to be linked to the crafting recipes
  
• Explosive damage now triggers a radial damage event in code incorperating player stats / talents / equipment for explosive damage stat increases rather than relying on BP flat value damage payloads
  
• Added new stat for explosive damage radius which controls the spread of the explosion
  
• Adding Grenade as a projectile type so its explosive damage can be scaled based on player talents after the shift from explosive damage to code rather than the payload BP
  
• Adjusting damage function library to take into account the new functionality of the explosive damage type
  
• Adding explosive damage stats to the different explosive damage types so they can be clearly seen in popups & used for damage calculation
  
• Payloads are now passed the projectiles damage stat container for any required cosmetic effects
  
• Certain creatures now take more damage from explosve damage: Caveworms, scorpions and crocodiles. Additionally the scorpion, landshark and sandworm bosses take increased damage. The scorpion boss takes further increased damage in it's hardened armor state
  
• Updated Payload logic and spawn timings so stats can be retrieved
  
• Updating Pistol, Rifle, Shotgun to deal less projectile damage but a lot more explosive damage
  
• Upping Grenade Damage
  
• Converting Larkwell Explosive Arrow to be correctly stat driven
  
• Add a basic vertical spread to damage labels when multiple hits occur in a single second (explosive ammo)
  
• Halved damage multiplier for explosive damage on scorpions and crocodiles, scorpion boss still takes double damage while in it's hardened state.
  
• Reduced damage on Explosive Shells from 60 to 50 explosive.
  
• Reduced explosion area on shotgun and pistol rounds slightly, to reduce the likelyhood of mistaken damage.
  
• Increased stack size of frag and smoke grenades to 5.
  
• Increased damage of frag grenades to 1000, additionally doubled the distance before damage falloff starts, resulting in more consistent damage over the area
  
• Ensure Larkwell_Ballistic arrows are not available for pickup after a killcam shot

Fixed

• Update Warm and Cozy description to match current effects
  
• Fixup redirectors and delete unused VFX assets
  
• Decreased opacity and count of Motes effect in Forest slightly based on community feedback
  
• Update some insurance claim, prospect select, server browser, server chat and main menu options to correctly use translatable strings
  
• Added low.ms to the server provider list
  
• Fix for crash caused by accolades/trackers that are locked behind content flags
  
• Fixed reloading a completed mission causing mission to restart

Future Content

• Enabled outside tooltip, disabled outside requirement on existing deployables until ready
  
• Re-merged outside tooltip to ensure it is not shown in the current build
  
• Adding destruction sounds for vases. Event and data table entrys
  
• Small increase in volume to vase destruction and adding missing collision to vases without it
  
• Update SMPL references to correctly mention SMPL3 in dynamic mission selection
  
• Replaced frozen river mesh in order to use complex collision for accurate spline collision
  
• Added missing cache files for VR_CaveWall_Ice
  
• Adding first pass delay zones mapping for Prom. To be adjusted
  
• Enabled ice cave entrances in the AC areas, added roots to cave & general cleanup Blue/Green Quad, DLC Map
  
• Update brambles to show the required sickle icon when attempting to harvest
  
• Added a transparent icon to the search area that only becomes visible on the compass UI
  
• Polished and added roots and vines to tunnel of Swamp transition cave, Yellow Quad, DLC
  
• Polished and added stalagmites, roots and vines to tunnel of Swamp transition cave, Yellow Quad, DLC
  
• Implementation pass of 1ST person Fishing anims including 1st person rig and anim bp set up, still needs a couple hooks for certain anim assets to be used and missing refined fishing rod animation
  
• First pass on cleanup of the Atmosphere Controller blueprint. Still lots to do and functionize to further clean up
  
• Adding thatch deployable item setup so fishing trap can have appropriate audio when destroyed.
• Also changed PM to use thatch instead of wood for better audio choice
  
• Added SM_LC_LavaCold_08 mesh for Rock Dog lava VFX
  
• Adding predator bird, lava hunter and broodling bestiary sounds. Adding PB to data table
  
• Added art asstes for the large version of the T4 Aquarium
  PRO_Story_6: Initial pass at first few mission steps
  
• Refactor player underwater post-processing logic to allow us to switch to different settings for lava and swamp water bodies. Add swamp water gameplay tag to enable switch logic
  
• Added destructible mesh for Large T4 aquarium, Adjusted gap in the glass on the static mesh
  
• Added roots to cave & general cleanup swamp Purple/Green Quad, DLC Map
  
• Added cliffs Around Ice River and Gneral Cleanup, Blue Quad, Prometheus
  
• First test audio for deer variant. Will adjust and fine tune. All data table entries and Rescaled Deer Varient to be slightly bigger
  
• Resubmitting kitchen bench audio
  
• Adding inital pass of bloom curve control to AtmosphereController and biome curve assets - currently unconnected and needs review
  
• Polished and added roots and vines to tunnel of Swamp transition cave, Blue Quad, DLC
  
• Enabled cave entrances in the TU/AC areas, Yellow Quad, DLC Map
  
• Adjusting prebuilt structure save / load code to save relative positions from an origin rather than absolute world positions, this enables us to use prebuilt structures in dynamic quests
  
• Added roots to cave & general cleanup swamp Purple Quad, DLC Map
  
• Updates and additions to the deer variant audio
  
• Lava Spit VFX for Rock Dog and Lava Pool BP and VFX Prototype
  PRO_Story_6: Setup next quest step
  
• Added support for controller triggers to speed up and slow down cinematic camera speed
  
• Added hanging ferns & roots ferns in SW transition cave on Yellow Quad, DLC Map
  
• Setting bloom curves to default settings - adjusting bloom 'off' to default settings. Still WIP
  
• Adding unlock creature bestiary UI sound. Also adding Blueprint Implementation
  
• Polished and added ferns and vines to tunnel of Swamp transition cave, Blue Quad, DLC
  
• Removing Lens Flare on Atmosphere Controller PostProcess_Base, this was an accidental commit.
• Adding example settings to GL curve in preparation for testing
  
• Adding Basic Logic for new 'Lost' Dynamic Quest
  
• Added cliffs Around Ice River and General Cleanup, Blue Quad, Prometheus
  
• Adding deer vari bestiary audio
  
• Carbon Fiber Shield - SK, materials, textures added (SK_ITM_Shield_CarbonFiber)
  
• Adding Large Aquarium Model and Item Setup
  
• Updates to terrain delay audio zones map
  
• Made FoliagePicker button pretty
  
• Fixing Dynamic Mission Paths
  
• Adding lore entires to D_BestiaryData. More to come
  
• Added hanging ferns and roots/vines to the Swamp to Volcanic tunnel cave on Purple Quad, DLC
  
• Adding lore entires to D_BestiaryData. More to come
  
• Fixed General Issues with Prefab Caves on Purple Quad, Prometheus
  
• The lure now resets automatically after throwing it onto land initially
  
• Changed values to make it better for remote testing
  
• Added montages for once youve caught the fish but not implemented yet
  
• Added a new test map for me to test fishing
  
• Small adjustments to the carved wood lamps sound sizes being incorrect and minor volume adjustment
  
• Adjustments to the unlock creature bestiary level and low end and start pan
  
• More updates to delay zones mapping and eq adjustments to new biome delays to get the right feel
  
• Fix the build (conditional headers)
  
• Updated player tracker json for validation
  
• Added hanging ferns and roots/vines to the Swamp to Volcanic tunnel cave and general clean up on Purple Quad, DLC
  
• Fixed Vapor XP event spelling and changed PredatorBird Skinning event to not be Shared
  
• Added validation to detect incorrectly set Shared XP setups
  
• Corrected various naming, spelling, and reference issues
  
• Fixed ordering of XPEvents DT and corrected values (eg, killing polarbearcub gave 100xp, skinning it gave 750xp)
  
• Added missing XPevents for DLC creatures
  
• Updates to Bestiary data for naming consistency
  
• Removed references to incorrect icons so that content progress is not muddied
  
• Added support for new types of accolades (one-offs, task lists, and whole talent trees)
  
• Rewrote core of bestiary subsystem to be clearer and avoid large amounts of RPC's
  
• Added more hooks for pushing accolades to steam
  
• Added a large range of new accolades for Galileo
  
• Adding Fishing Minigame Widget
  
• Refactored fishing minigame blueprints to be easier to read/understand
  
• Fixed a bug where the model of the fish would change after appearing on your line
  
• Fixed General Issues with Prefab Caves on Purple Quad, Prometheus
  
• Added mesh, materials, AO map for Spawn blocker T2 (SM_DEP_SpawnBlocker_T2)
  
• First lot of wooly zebra idle audio, event and data table setups
  
• Add Tooling for checking Creature name data
  
• Updated in-game names for predator bird and rockdog