Icarus Week 144 Update | Encounter the new Arctic Vesper

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

Welcome to week 144.

This week introduces the new Arctic Vesper, which is found in nests spawning in the frozen expanses of Icarus.

The Arctic Vesper is a dangerous foe, flying low to the ground and fiercely defending its nests, where you’ll be able to find the new ‘Guano’ resource that can be used in bio-fuel alternative recipes.

We also briefly mention the new cart attachments coming next week.

Notable Improvements

• Recipes that produce resources such as water or biofuel, will now display the amount of that resource produced on the recipe (See Composter)
  
• In place of stack count in item tooltips, items with a resource contained within (water / biofuel / electric charge) will show their current units and total capacity instead
  
• Mount tooltips will no longer show 'Owned by Nobody' when the owner logged out
  
• Removing dirt mound recipe and blueprint from the tech tree as it is no longer required since the introduction of different tiered shovels, blueprints points are refunded if they were allocated

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This Week: Arctic Vespers
The Arctic Vesper has landed in Icarus.

New nests are spawning across the arctic regions of Icarus, where these bat-like mutations can be found. Vespers fly at low altitudes - roughly head height - and attack when threats come too close to their nests. Vespers will provide some needed variety to the arctic zones, now requiring you to keep your eyes on the sky as well as on the ground where familiar polar bears, wolves, and other carnivores roam.

Arctic Vesper nests can also be looted for a new resource, Guano. This can be used in some new high-volume biofuel recipes, an alternate recipe to volatile acid, and another recipe for farm fertilizer.

Guano as a resource is part of our wider intention to provide many alternative recipes for high-use products while also providing high rewards for hard-to-find resources. A good in-game example is the Mammoth Tusk, which can be ground down in a Mortar & Pestle to generate a large amount of epoxy compared to the standard bone recipe.

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Coming Soon: NullSector
As mentioned in previous weeks, the NullSector (our Free Prometheus Expansion) will include new Operations, a new exploration mechanic, new mutated creatures, and one new giant creature.

We are still actively working on the NullSector, with some big mission revamps in the works, more narrative, more dialogue, and more missions to provide the experience it deserves.

This region is not for the faint of heart. All the adjustments and differences are geared towards this being a hardcore survival challenge, so make sure you enter it prepared.

If you are interested in reading about what we plan to do with missions in the future, click here.

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Next Week: Cart Attachments
Since the introduction of different shovels, Farming Carts have become relatively obsolete in the world of farming, only producing mounds equivalent to the quality delivered by the Iron Shovel.

Next week, we’ll address this by adding attachments that can be socketed into Farming Carts to improve the quality of the dirt mounts they produce.

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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 v2.2.19.126872
New Content [expand type=details expanded=false]

• Add the ability to play directional dialogue at world locations by registering dedicated audio components for individual dialogue speakers
  
• Adding and Enabling the Arctic Bat (Arctic Vesper) nest spawning in arctic zones
  
• Adding Guano item, icon and alternate recipes for biofuel, volatile acid and fertilizer
  
• Adding Arctic Bat Trophy and Vestiage, items, icons and recipes
  
• Adding base class for nests and common reward granting logic
  
• Adding Arctic Bat Vestiage and Trophy Icons
  
• Fixed texture group for bat creature's textures, bats are no longer 4k
  
• Disabled friendly fire on bat dive attacks
  
• Fixed a typo in the Vesper trophy item description

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Fixed [expand type=details expanded=false]

• Adjusting the BP of water jerrycans to use updated parameter. Works the same - just simplifying setup
  
• Updates and fixes to grenades to help audio make sense.
  
• Fixed grenade throws not having unhide actor component on grenade throw animation resulting in only the first grenade being visible
  
• Adding more rock falls for the cave. More verbed rock falls to add more dimension to the environment. tweaks to spawn rates etc. also adding slow modulated eerie wind
  
• Fixing placement of notify on grenade montage. Adjustment to grenade bounce audio to make additional bounces feel smaller. correcting wrong grenade fix
  
• Added datatable validation to catch drop chances under 1%
  
• Fixed frag grenade effects not being played if the grenade never hits anything
  
• Added the reworked iron buildables, Railings, Doors, trap door hatch
  
• Changed MA_GLS_BLD's Opacity Mask Clip Value to 0.01, this should fix the issue where highlighting glass building pieces/deployables had a very noisy appearance
  
• Adjusted collision around horse's neck to significantly reduce how much the hair sticks out to the side when the head is turned, as well as fixed some bad skinning in some areas, most notably around the neck and tail.
  
• Also fixed skinning on the mane and tail to properly match the body skinning
  
• Fixed small candles setting things on fire aggressively. Some candles were using flammable campfire and some werent using anything. Made this consistent with all candles
  
• Removing dirt mound recipe and blueprint from the tech tree as it is no longer required since the introduction of different tiered shovels
  
• Adjustment to spear impact audio - making it slightly longer than standard arrows to accomodate for boss throwing spears
  
• Blend out and disable PostProcess volume on RespawnPod after it has landed. This fixes the lighting being darkened when walking near the seat of the ship
  
• Turn off Light on Machining Bench by default, otherwise Light will be on permanently until machine is first used. Will toggle automatically when recipes start/stop processing
  
• Updated Last few iron buildables to use the kit textures. full LOD pass on all iron builddable with custom LODs for assets using corrigated geo. Updated iron Door, Hatch, Window and gate BPs with new buildables
  
• Fixed bug where mount tooltips would show 'Owned by Nobody' when the owner logged out.
  
• Fixed bug where long player names wouldn't fit on mount tooltip 'Owned by' section
  
• Fixed typo in Portable Beacon flavor text
  
• Adding missing data table setups for molotov for the audio I did 2 years ago. Removed animations from the frag grenade that were pulling the pin etc
  
• COMPOSITION: Fixed end timer being too long and not providing feedback to players
  
• Adjustments to spear flying audio to accomodate better for variances in speed.
  
• Adding pickup spear wood and metal events and applying to data table entries. adjusted audio timing of spear whoosh on anim
  
• Fixing accidental change to spear notify to wrong place
  
• Fix turret targeting isn't working as desired for some deployment angles
  
• Fix a race condition crash reported in Sentry relating to terrain anchor async tasks and shutting down the level

[/expand]

Future Content [expand type=details expanded=false]

• Added dialogue entries for Cpt Church
  
• Added BLD_Floor_Metal_Grate, BLD_Floor_Half_Metal_Grate, BLD_Stairs_Metal_Grate and BLD_Stairs_Half_Metal_Grate
  
• Medic scanner and body bag added, medic scanner needs tweak to ore holding animation, should also fix all the flipped scanners in 3RD person at the same time too, body bag just needs carry hookup
  
• Fixed issue where NPCs using the CreatureSize_+% stat would stretch and warp when ragdolled
  
• Adding test event and audio for 2d 3d vocalisations
  
• Added Volcano & Cliff Placement in Outpost 9, on Red Quad
  
• Cliff Placement Pass and Macro Cliff Pass, Outpost 11
  
• Removed sublevels in ice mammoth arena and placed everything into the persistent level
  
• New Medical Device Mesh & inworld widget when held in the players hand, Setting up New Mission NPC''s
  
• Add buildable setup for metal grate pieces
  
• Added test meshes, and bp, for t5 kit
  
• Cliff Placement Pass and Riverbank Pass, Outpost 11
  
• Added items and DT entries to support new harvest cart blade mechanic. Added new stat 'IsSprintDisabled_Bool' to disable ability to sprint via stat
  
• Ice Breaker added footprints to walk and stomp animations, fix parallex decal projection, added VFX to stomp and basic walk
  
• Added Field Guide Items title icon
  
• updated Field Guide Items image
  
• Cliff Placement Pass and Macro Cliff Pass, Outpost 11
  
• Add dialogue speaker implementation to Mission NPC base so that directional dialogue can be implemented when ready
  
• Added Ape armor 1ST& 3RD, sk meshes, material, bp gfur and textures and updated D_Armour
  
• Added tooltips to field guide buttons
  
• New plough attachments are now called Steel, Platinum, and Titanium ploughs instead of Basic and Advanced
  
• Fix weather occlusion on whiteout effect
  
• Disabled storm wall FX actor until a pass is done on it to look better

[/expand]