[2023] Icarus Week Sixty Seven Update | Mount Improvements and Buffs

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

Week Sixty Seven focuses on providing a range of Mount improvements, tweaks, and buffs. These include changes to saddles, behaviors, and baseline stats to overcome some of the core issues that players have encountered.

We also give an update on the progress of Galileo and an insight into the ‘Bestiary’ feature. Finally, we talk about next week's update and what to expect.

Jump in and have a read.



Mount Improvements
This week we’re bringing a bunch of Mount improvements, based on feedback from the community and monitoring overall performance and usage.

• Saddles now include 'G' slots so radars, extractors, and other heavier items can be carried. Basic saddles will have one slot, saddle bags will have two slots, and carts will have five
  
• Mounts no longer take damage from thirst or hunger, meaning they will not perish if left unsupervised
  
• Increased all mounts' damage resistance by 10% to improve their survivability
  
• Increased the damage resistance provided by the saddles when equipped to mounts by 10% (was 0%)
  
• Added an Aura to the Animal Bed which provides creatures with a ‘Well Rested’ buff, similar to players
  
• Lowered the base time it takes to tame creatures from 1200 seconds to 900 seconds

A lot of the feedback we have received around Mounts has been about the difficulties of effectively utilizing them when playing solo. A lot of our improvements have focused on this area of gameplay, removing elements such as damage from hunger/thirst and improving their overall damage resistance. Also adding slots for extractors and radars makes them viable as stand-in teammates for solo adventures, and reducing taming durations helps speed up the experience, which is understandably more drawn out in solo mode.



Galileo Progress
This week's focus on our upcoming Galileo patch has been the bestiary rewards, UI setup as well as an iteration on the fishing mechanic, following on from our progress last week.

For those still in the dark, Bestiary is the achievement system that will give you statistics on your hunting and animal exploits. This will be tied into a milestoned rewards system, with lofty targets reaping strong rewards.

The work going into this is split across lots of backend work, but also developing a good UI and rewards system that provides players with the incentive to aim for these milestones.



Next Week's Update
For next week, we have packaged a performance update that we will put in the experimental branch on Steam later this weekend. We will be looking for feedback this week on the changes, and if the feedback is positive we will push this, but if not we will take a different approach.

For those unfamiliar with our strategy, we’re focusing on five key areas: Engine Performance, Game Systems, Memory, Stutters & Garbage Collection, and Connection. You can read more detail about our strategy in our Week 59 update here.

Optimization is an ‘always on’ part of our development and has its own dedicated team separate from the teams working on game design, concept art, and the many other roles and departments in the business. Sometimes, people can assume that due to us pushing out other updates with new content, we’re not focusing our time or attention on performance, but this couldn’t be further from the case. The skillset needed is very specific, and we, therefore, have dedicated specialists working on it exclusively, while the rest of the team keeps moving forward with our other plans.



Changelog v1.2.42.108807
New Content

• Adding 'Heavy Cargo' Inventory to Mounts and Mount Inventory UI
  
• Adding Heavy Cargo slots to some of the Mount Saddles so mounts can carry 'G'-Slot items
  
• Mounts no Longer Take Damage From being at Level 3 Thirst, or Level 3 Hunger, meaning they will not die if left alone
  
• Increased All Mounts Damage Resistance to give them greater surviveability +10%
  
• Increased the Damage resistance provided by the Saddles that can be equipped to the mounts (+10%, 15%)
  
• Added an Aura to the Animal Bed which provides creatures with a 'Well Rested' Buff
  
• Lowered Base time to Tame Creatures 1200 -> 900
  
• Mounts no longer wander around in their 'Stay' behaviour state, and will return to the location where they were last told to stay after eating/drinking
  
• Adding Heavy Cargo stats to Saddles

Fixed

• Fixed a few typos picked up by translators
  
• Fixing communicator T2 having incorrect crafted sound (used masonry when it should use crafting bench)
  
• ALCAZAR, HIGHRISE: Changed Biofuel Stove quest step to mention Kitchen Stove
  
• ALCAZAR, HIGHRISE, LIFE LINE: Changed Kitchen Stove quest step to correctly mention Biofuel Stove
  
• IRONCLAD: Updated name of Metal Plating to Layered Plating to match quest description

Future Content

• Added BLD_Wall_Sngle_Wood for Buildable Rework Investigation
  
• General clean up of foliage, decals and blended terrain with GL cliffs in Grasslands, Green Quad, DLC
  
• Updated audio for lava tree sapling and applied sound to joshua trees BP. Better tonal balance and sizing
  
• Adding Promethus Open World Drop Zone, so open world can be played
  
• Adding Galileo Feature Level
  
• Small tonal balance to exotic tinted plant harvest audio
  
• Fixed Batdog physics asset
  
• Fixed bug where batdog wouldn't exit out of it's stalking behaviour when damaged
  
• Added hitreact to Batdog while sitting
  
• Added New Storm VFX NS, PP and BP
  
• Setup new Weather VFX on Weatherman Editor Tool
  
• Adjustments to DLC Trailer Volcanic Shot
  
• Small adjustment to aspen tree falling audio to make it more appropriate to match the visuals
  
• Committing Rudimentry Bestiary UI and Data Structures for Iteration
  
• Added materials and textures for all 4 variants of Fish08, models will follow soon. Upated character/creature shader to allow for subsurface masking and dithering options
  
• Sulfur Decal - changed alpha, added color variations (mats and FTs)|
  
• New landscape textures for Grasslands
  
• Added hemorrhage to Batdog heavy attack
  
• Added sand layer to grasslands cliff and canyonwall materials for better terrain blending
  
• Added copy of creature/charater shader with irideacence functionality to Pedro's developer folder to clean up/optimise
  
• Added Basic Fish Enteries to Bestiary and removed open button from menu, Pressing 'J' will open bestiary for now
  
• Adding Striker climb out animation with Root Motion for spawning behavior
  
• Added Aquarium and Advanced Aquarium Icons into datatable
  
• Added fishing bench, fishing trap and advanced fishing trap icons into datatable
  
• Fixed Hole In Ice Cave, Added Voxels Swamp Transition Cave & Tundra Transition Cave Blue/Yellow Quad, DLC Map
  
• WIP Commit of GL_AspenLeaves decal (textures, material, FT)
  
• PRO_Story_5: Completed location placements, updated objective mesh as placeholder
  
• Adding Fish Names to Items
  
• Bestiary UI Update, Data is now pulled from one source
  
• Polished snow decals in tundra area and blended terrain with tundra cliffs, Blue Quad, DLC
  
• Added text for various fishing-related items and wire
  
• Added text descriptions for new fish
  
• Removed Swamp Cave Blocker and Set Dressed The Transition Cave Between Purple and Red Quad, Prometheus
  
• Added DM for Scorpion_Hedgehog_Trap_03
  
• Added DM for DEP_Hedgehog_MED_03
  
• Flushed Grass on Green Quad, DLC Map
  
• Added Static Meshes and SKeletal mesh for Fish 08. Added BP for Fish 08
  
• Starting Promethus mission can now be triggered by interacting with the dropship on an open world
  
• Updating Dropship and Mission Communicator widgets so they correctly select the Mission Talent tree associated with the terrain
  
• Fixed Landscape Gap & Fixed Cave Surface showing on Red/Green/Blue Qaud, OLY
  
• Updating Dropship and Mission Communicator so the second and subsuqent promethus missions can be trigger from open world
  
• added fish11 textures and materials
  
• PRO_Story_5: Tweak areas, dialogue pacing, power requirements
  
• adjusted saturation for fish11
  
• Additional Setup of the bestiary, adding additional information to the fist data table for classification and setup the data to be displayed in the Fish Page and Entry
  
• Add a distance to player hook for designers when using animal swarms in quests
  
• First pass of GL_AspenLeaves decal
  
• Fixing Issue with Promethus Missions where the Droppods where not dropping at the correct locations which was preventing various quests steps from being complete
  
• Cleaned Up Bad & Leaning Foilage on Green Quad, DLC Map
  
• Pass on RockDog combat behaviours
  
• Added special fire effects while enraged
  
• Added ability for NPC footstep notifies to specify left or right
  
• General clean up in swap biome, added more megatree roots and polished blending of cliffs, Purple Quad, DLC
  
• Updating mask texture for M_BLD_Wall_Angle_Wood, as well as renaming several textures
  
• Adding in an animation to use as the spit attack for the Rock Dog to pull it away from the Roar
  
• Visual changes made to Prospector FieldGuide. (Bestiary Category, creature button, creature entry, bestiary creatures, fish button, fish entry, fish page, bestiary.)
  
• Removed Character Flag requirement from T3 Communication device as it is now a mission device
  
• Fixing Promethus Missions 2/3 as the load order of the prebuilt structures has changes and prevented finding of the containers to fill for the quests
  
• Updating Aquariums for the new Fish Models
  
• Added support for accolades to trigger steam achievements (disabled until achievements have been setup)
  
• Fish now scale based on their length stat when placed in aquariums
  
• Improve animal swarm spawner customization, allowing updating the spawn target on the fly
  
• Increasing volume of grasslands ambience base layer within Pro Tools so no less increase needs to be done in FMOD
  
• Decal painting and general polish of Purple quad, prometheus
  
• D_LC_ErosionRockBlend - adjusted saturation to better match LC rocks
  
• Added ITM Lures, Basic Iron Lure, Prospector tag lure, Rubbery, Higher Tier Wood, Basic Wooden, Bone, Iron, Blue Reed, Yeast, Rotten Meat and Poison Sack
  
• Polish in swap biome, added more megatree roots and polished tunnels in Megatree manual cave, Purple Quad, DLC
  
• Removing Quest Step from Promethus story 2 as it doesnt make sense
  
• Added ITM_Lures, Scorpion Tail, White Jelly, Painted Feather, Fiber, Bark Bug
  
• Centered pivot on Fish08 static meshes
  
• Adjusting fish positions in the aquariums to account for the new pivoit point
  
• Setting up base logic for the fish wall mounts, including widgets displaying stats and the mesh
  
• Further improved customization on swarm creature spawning
  
• Decal painting and general polish of Purple quad, prometheus
  
• Fixed MapCreatorUtility not applying MaterialOverride to Lakes or Rivers correctly
  
• Added new minimap-friendly lava material
  
• Lava-type WaterSetups now use lava material override when using MapCreatorUtility's 'Apply Override Materials' button
  
• First layers of unique transport pod audio
  
• Visual Updates on Bestiary UI
  
• Fixed Up Cave_GL_MED_001 & CAVE_GL_MED_002 , DLC Map
  
• Added SM_Wall_Win_DBL_Wood_L, Added T_Wall_Win_DBL_Wood_L_AO, Added M_Wall_Win_DBL_Wood_L_Kit_A & M_Wall_Win_DBL_Wood_L_Kit_B
  
• Added art assets for a Dirty variant the T3 and T4 aquariums
  
• Added HRB_Rhubarb with all growth stages
  
• Fixed RockDog spit not working
  
• Fixed RockDog enrage effects beginning too early sometimes
  
• PRO_Story_5: Fix marked areas, update timer