[2023] Icarus Week Eighty One Update | Recipe rebalances and reduced costs

Week Eighty One brings a refresh and rebalance of our blueprint tree, and improvements to Tier 3 and 4 recipes.

As the game has evolved, certain items have either become more valuable, or declined in their value, so we’ve shuffled where they’re unlocked and their recipe costs to make them more balanced in the current state of the game.

We’ve also fixed a couple of long-standing bugs and an update on Styx.

Jump in and have a read.



QoL & Fixes
The blueprint tree has received a complete rework and shuffle, with our intention to better group together related items and even adjust some tiers, to reflect their value to the game at this stage of its lifecycle.

This re-arrange will mean that certain pathways and familiarity will be lost, so it’s worth spending a couple of minutes having a look at the new design to acclimatize yourself. Don’t worry about your purchased blueprints, none have been lost as a result of these changes.

For example, the placeable beacon that provides map markers has received a recipe cost rebalance, and shifted to Tier 3, to better reflect the value it offers in the current state of the game.

We’ve also made some other quality of life adjustments and fixes:

• Many fruit and vegetables that have previously only been harvestable by hand can now be harvested by the Sickle (including Carrots, Pumpkin, Watermelon, Mushrooms) and will benefit from the Sickle's harvest stat
  
• The Lantern present at Tier 2 on the blueprint tree, which was powered by Biofuel is now instead powered by Animal Fat, when the item breaks it can be repaired with animal fat at the crafting bench. Making this a refillable device for lighting your way. It also no longer requires glass (a Tier 3 material) to craft.
  
• We now have warnings and icons shown on the map selection screen for Missions and Open World to reflect the increased difficulty that Styx presents, and to direct new players towards Olympus for an easier introduction to the game
  
• The Solar Panel was accidentally indestructible, it will now take damage like other devices

Tier 3 and 4 Recipe Balance
Part of our process for rebalancing recipes is to break down the required resources into intermediary resources, to give us more flexibility in tiering and scaling our costs.

These new intermediary items in general focus on breaking down Ingots, and are as follows:

Originally posted by author: 1 Gold Ingot → 5 Gold Wire
1 Copper Ingot → 5 Copper Wire
1 Platinum Ingot → 4 Platinum Sheath
3 Titanium Ingot → 1 Titanium Plate

We have also adjusted the output of Refined Wood as follows:

Originally posted by author: Refined Wood
OLD: 1 Wood → 10 Refined Wood
NEW:1 Wood to → 5 Refined Wood

We’ve also made the following adjustments to improve recipes and provide a simpler and more cost effective experience when crafting items:

• The Cured Leather recipe has been added to the Advanced & Electric Armor Benches
  
• Many Tier 3 or Tier 4 recipes will now be adjusted to use the new intermediary items that are derived from raw Ingots. This is part of our focus on reducing the amount of raw Ingots used in recipes, and to be able to correctly scale crafting bonuses now and in future
  
• Another change is Tier 3 and Tier 4 recipes previously requiring Raw Leather and Wood have been updated to now required Cured Leather and Refined Wood as these items better fit their tier
  
• Steel is now also craftable in Stone Furnaces as it establishes itself as a high Tier 2 ingredient, making room for the other metals in Tiers 3 & 4

Styx is now paid
As mentioned in Week 77, the Styx Map and Missions Pack has moved to being a paid DLC after being free for over a year.

This change will not impact anyone who already owned Styx (effectively, anyone who had bought Icarus before last week), and will only impact new players in the future.

What’s more, in multiplayer games anyone who does own Styx can launch any Styx Mission, Outpost or Open World and invite anyone else with Icarus to play with them - even if that person doesn’t own Styx. The only restrictions are the ability to host, not play in general. This approach to sharing will be the same for our future paid expansions too.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1995690/Icarus_Styx_Map__Missions_Pack/

Originally posted by author: If you like what we’re doing with Icarus, and want to support our continued development, consider purchasing one of our DLCs for a few dollars, it would mean a lot to us.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2445280/Icarus_Interior_Decorations_Pack

Changelog v1.3.3.112540
New Content/Adjustments

• Blueprint Tree rework so that items are in more natural collections and links are better represented
  
• Shifted some elements around to make better sence of their tiering
  
• Adding editor utility widgets for quick look up of recipes, items, and their unlock tiers and devices
  
• Adjusting Blueprint tree layout so items names are no longer clipped on the bottom
  
• Adjusting Recipes for T3/T4 for the inclusion of Copper Wire, Gold Wire, Platinium Sheath, Titanium Plate, (deployables mostly effected, tools still use ingots)
  
• Adjusting T3/T4 Recipes to use Refined Wood & Cured Leather instead of basic wood and leather so the deployables reflect their tier
  
• Adjusting T4 portable beacon so it is now T3 and adjusted recipe cost accordingly
  
• Add data and assets for AlphaWolf, Bear, Buffalo, ConiferWolf, Cougar, Deer, Jaguar, PolarBear, SnowWolf and SnowLeopard decoration rugs
  
• Adjusting Recipes: 1 Wood=5 Refined Wood
  
• Adjusting Recipes: 1 Gold Ingot = 5 Gold Wire
  
• Adjusting Recipes: 1 Copper Ingot = 5 Copper Wire
  
• Adjusting Recipes: 1 Platinum Ingot = 4 Platinum Sheath
  
• Adjusting Recipes: 3 Titanium Ingot = 1 Titanium Plate
  
• Adding new Recipes to Advanced&Electric Armor Bench for Cured Leather
  
• Basic Wall Lights & Basic Ceiling Lights are now craftable on the fabricator and have been shifted to T4 as they require electricity
  
• Recipe Adjustment: Beacons now at T3 instead of T4
  
• Recipe Adjustment: [Wood -> x5 Refined wood] instead of 10 like before
  
• Small tweaks and reroute node fixes to bleurpint tree
  
• Recipe Alteration: Steel is now craftable in the stone furnace
  
• Updating T3 blueprint tree to shift concrete mixer right at the front as it is required for a lot of T3 recipes
  
• Reorgnaize T3 blueprint tree to have all recipes requiring concrete behind the concrete mixer
  
• T2 Lantern is now crafted with Epoxy rather than glass
  
• T2 Lantern is now powered by Animal fat, when turned on, it will take durability damage and when it breaks it can be repaired with animal fat, it should last around 45 minutes of real time when on
  
• Updated platinum weave recipe to use 2 platinum weave, instead of 1 platinum ingot (50% cost reduction, slightly more processing).

Fixed

• RE adding the correct spawn blocker deploy audio sound for T2
  
• Fix modifier audio to update correctly if modifier states change while player is mounted. Fixes bug where exposure vocalisations could continue to play indefinitely if player hopped on a mount during a storm, and other similar scenarios
  
• Prevent wood rag torch audio from playing movement-driven whooshes when it's equipped in the L slot
  
• Fixed only the last damaging player receiving accolade progress for killing animals and bosses. Any player that damaged the creature will now receive progress
  
• Added logging whenever new UI elements push pop or clear the input stack
  
• Reduced points required for Kea bestiary unlocks.
  
• Corrected typo in Burning modifier description
  
• Fix broken wood rag torch audio logic which was preventing douse sounds from playing when equipped in the L slot
  
• Updated spawn blocker descriptions to better fit with in-game language
  
• Fix mission completed UI audio cue not playing by adding missing FMOD event ref to player feedback audio component
  
• Fixed bug where picking up freshly cut wood would recalculate the amount of wood rewarded, causing it to not match the amount of wood shown on the tooltip. The recalculated amount was using the HarvestingRewards stat instead of the FellingRewards stat, resulting in potentially lower rolls depending on the item held
  
• Fixed the solar panel not having a durable setup, resulting in it being immune to all damage (now has 2500 hp)
  
• Added datatable validation on items static durability.
  
• Added durability to Water Pump (2000) and Portable Beacon (5000)
  
• Fixed chilled modifier from applying to non-spoilable items
  
• Adding Skull Difficulty indicator to Open World and Mission Select Terrian Selection Widgets
  
• Mark various vege types as harvestable with the sickle
  
• Added a bit more flavour text for some fish food items
  
• Added small, medium and large carcass rewards, allowing scaling of item rewards based on the size of the carcass.
  
• Added data table validation to ensure carcass rewards match the carcass' defined size.
  
• Added polar bear cub carcass description and flavor text
  
• Add item rewards to plants newly harvestable via sickle

Future Content

• Fixed some more rugs that were crashing game due to lack of CPUAccess on StaticMesh
  
• Adjustments to the landmine audio. Added more debris, close mid and distant layers and finessed volumes against original audio
  
• Adding Recipes for Remaining Iron Wood Tool set as well as the ability to Craft Refined Iron Wood, Cold Steel Ingots and Shaped Obsidian
  
• Obsidian, Cold Steel and Iron Wood Ammo can now be placed in bows, crossbows, and firearms
  
• Adding Images for Obsidian Tools and Cold Steel / Iron Wood Resources
  
• Hide the close button on the bestiary in space (use the return button instead)
  
• Adding landmine deploy audio and event, and adjustments to the spawn blockers audio volumes
  
• Adding obsidian axe and pickaxe to data table and volume and other adjustments to the events
  
• Adding Thorned, Frosted and Chilled Alterations for the new Cold Steel and Iron Wood special tool interactions
  
• Adding Pyrritic Crust, Frozen Ore, Infected Bark, Acidic Glands and recipes to clean them for their final resources
  
• Added new Cave Entrance BP's and Cave Volumes to manual caves across green quad, prometheus
  
• Adding obsidian whoosh event and audio and fine tunes to whoosh notify placement
  
• Fix issues with Ingame Weatherman, double application of LC biome, update CurrentBiome text, fix default Fog values and slider min/max
  
• Added first pass Prometheus creature bestiary unlocks
  
• Adding Confirmation Prompts for Styx and Prometheus Terrain Selections which let players know they are tougher enviroments and Olympus is recommended for new players
  
• Updated obsidian whoohs sound, adding ricochet sound to project for landmine and adjustments to obsidian tool sets audio and fixed a data table entry pointing to old spelling
  
• Removing caveworms from PRO_Story_6 Cave
  
• Added new Cave Entrance BP's and Cave Volumes to manual caves across green and purple quad, prometheus
  
• Adding the wounded anims for phase 3 for the Lava hunter as well as the splash attack for use in both the geyser attack and the Lava Bath
  
• Adding Icons for Acidic Glands, Frozen Ore, Infected Bark & Pyritic Crust
  
• Add new Prometheus Weather events: HeavyAsh, AcidRain, Embers, Hail, SwampWinds
  
• Update Atmosphere Controller to better support custom FogExtinction values from Weather
  
• Add new Prometheus Weather functions and events to WeatherAction Base
  
• Update WeatherAction Base to better support debug info since Data table refactor
  
• Remove unused WeatherPool and OG debug WeatherEvent entries
  
• Tidied blueprint layouts for readability and future expansion
  
• Added bestiary lore for PROM creatures
  
• Hooking up Freeze & Miasma Stat Afflictions so they trigger when the appropriate stats are present
  
• Added ricochet layer to landmines and adjusted reverb over distance to match the rolloff of the distance curves
  
• Added SM_BLD_Wall_HalfPitch_Upper_Wood_INT_L, SM_BLD_Wall_HalfPitch_Upper_Wood_INT_R, DM Meashes, AO Masks & Set Up Materials for Buildable Rework Investigation
  
• Added new Cave Entrance BP's and Cave Volumes to manual caves across Green, Blue and Yellow Quads, prometheus
  
• Added functionality for recipe sets to be shown within blueprint tooltips, dev locked pending review and optimization
  
• Initial pass on lighting mission cave. Will need to re-evaluate once in context
  
• Moved Macro cliffs blocking manual caves and Adding new cliffs, Purple Quad, Prometheus
  
• Added Master Materaials for Scoria infused Stone Kit as well as Materials and Mask textures for several pieces
  
• Revamped mission select buttons, added difficulty and replaced 'missions' with an icon instead
  
• Add LOD material for Shrund assets with RVT disabled in final LOD
  
• Add nonRVT LOD material for Creek meshes
  
• Added new Lava Hunter ability to retreat into nearby lava lakes to heal and power up, added new wounded walk & wounded idle animations
  
• Adding new material function that better aligns decal sparkle textures for less decal stretching. Applied that MF to Decal master material, Confirmed this only effects appropriate decals. Adjusted prometheus decals for visibility, added emmissive. Will need more work once scene is correctly setup
  
• Add more helpful logging to world cave generation in commandlet to help track down incomplete world caves in Prom
  
• Adding unique obsidian knife slash sound and data table entries
  
• Updated name of Exotic Processor to Organic Residue Cleanser
  
• Replaced Story Cave 6 Cave Entrance With BP Cave Entrance and Added Mesh Blocker, Purple Quad, Prometheus
  
• PRO_Story_5: Add leadup tick damage prior to final destruction event.
  
• PRO_Story_5: Increase initial damage to deployed fortifications.
  
• PRO_Story_5: Add fallback mine explosion.
  
• Animal Swams: Added temporary spawn rate multiplier tool, to allow spawning of bursts of enemies.
  
• PRO_Story_5: Added bursts of enemies periodically throughout defense steps
  
• Adding bone armor data table setup to trigger audio
  
• Initial implementation of building skin system - allows building BPs to swap out Base/Frame materials per their D_BuildingSkin entry for each D_Buildable variation
  
• Resave assets using swarm components
  
• Optimizing Decal Sparkles Material Function, Adjusted use to compensate for change. Will complete final pass once scene is setup correctly
  
• Deleted two cave volumes in manual ice cave, Blue Quad, Prometheus
  
• Collision fixes on some LC and GL/TU/SW Cliffs that were causing navmesh issues
  
• Add new stats for obsidian weapons not wired yet (future content)
  
• Added Ballistic Asset for SK_KNI_Obsidian
  
• Fixed incorrect stat names in Iron Wood Sickle and Axe
  
• Added stats for Iron Wood tool effects
  
• Fixed Iron Wood tools item templates pointing at Obsidian tools
  
• Implemented Pyritic Crust and Acidic Gland tool stat effects (Sledge/Pick/Knife)
  
• Adding first pass of revamp of PRO_STORY_1 with the new quests steps, mission icons, prebuilt structures and mount
  
• Updates and adjustments to the one armor audio. WIP
  
• Added SM_BLD_Wall_HalfPitch_Lower_Wood_INT_L, SM_BLD_Wall_HalfPitch_Lower_Wood_INT_R, DM Meashes, AO Masks & Set Up Materials for Buildable Rework Investigation
  
• Add Impassable Bounds mask for Prometheus
  
• Change the EQS query used in various Prometheus quests (future content)
  
• Added New Persistent Blocker BP and Placed it in Story Cave 6 with appropriate flags, Purple Quad, Prometheus
  
• Removed empty 'OLYMPUS.' prompt when selecting OLY via UMG_OpenWorldSelection
  
• PRO_Story_6: Cleaned up blocker, ensure blocker is removed on mission start
  
• Fixed typo in shadow cascades setting description, calulate to calculate
  
• Added SM_BLD_BeamVertical_Wood_INT, SM_BLD_BeamHorizontal_Wood_INT, SM_BLD_BeamDiagonal_Wood_INT, DM Meashes, AO Masks & Set Up Materials for Buildable Rework Investigation
  
• Fix whitespace in the stats table (internal build validation)
  
• Adding bone armor 1 shots, bone armor leg event and adjustments to curves. Also adding exotic tree device correct deploy audio
  
• Added a new stat IsColdSteel_?
  
• Coldsteel sickle now applies the 'chilled' alteration onto everything it harvests which gives +100% to its spoil time
  
• Minor GL color correction tweaks
  
• Added dev feature to show if talents are dev locked within the in-game UI with an icon
  
• Added Control Rig IK for Lava Hunter
  
• Added Several Materials and mask textures for the Scoria infused Stone tier of buildables
  
• Changed Story Cave 6 Entrance from BP to Regular Static Mesh Actor
  
• Added base materials for the thatch buildable kit
  
• Adjustments to the meta tree loop to be more subtle. Duplicated event and made tonal adjustments etc. Applied to ET BP
  
• Wire obsidian knife stat - chance to cook when skinning (future content)
  
• Added materials and mask textures for a number of Stone Scoria biulding pieces
  
• Added ITM_Sledgehammer_Obsidian
  
• Implemented Iron Wood Axe behaviour
  
• Fixed Miasma damaging objects
  
• Fixed feature level on Obsidian_Ammo, now correctly locked with DLC content
  
• Minor fix to dev feature to show if talents are DLC locked withing the in-game UI with an icon
  
• Added dev feature to show if talents are DLC locked withing the in-game UI with an icon
  
• Small updates to the obsidian knife sound. Currently plays at the same time as hit indicator which may need to be adjusted based on proximity
  
• Added drifter lore to bestiary
  
• Fixed sickle harvesting rounding harvested amount down instead of up
  
• More additions and updates to lava hunter audio. Added splash in lava audio and event. Duplicated animation for lava hunter out to be used for separate montage and corrected the audio. Other adjustments
  
• Fixing up Obsidian/Ironwood/coldsteel arrows so they can be stacked to the correct amount
  
• Fixing obsidian bolt damage as it was doing way to much for its place in the tech tree, as well as Ironwood and Cold_Steel
  
• Adding Missing Ammo Item images to internal source control so they can be modified if needed
  
• Added text for NF weapon/tool resources
  
• Create a lighter version of Hail weather event for use in the Grasslands
  
• Added SKs, textures, materials for Cold Steel Spear (SK_SPR_ColdSteel)
  
• Hooking up Obsidian Knife Ballisitics Component so it can be thrown correctly
  
• Wire obsidian sickle stat, requires some rework about what should be harvestable with sickle (future content)
  
• Adding Icons for Sledgehammers
  
• Setting up Obsidian Sledgehammer mesh in game
  
• Implemented Iron Wood Sickle behaviour
  
• Adding Icons for the cold steel and obsidian rifle and pistol ammo
  
• Added text for Miasmic/Iron wood tools
  
• Added text for Cold Steel items
  
• Added text for Obsidian tool set
  
• Adding bone armor bone pack for D_Meshable context
  
• Adding Lava hunter wounded walk notifiers and adjustment to spacializer for vocals
  
• Fixing the Ice Borer Recipe to provide an ice borer item when crafting completes and not a deep mining drill
  
• Fixing the Exotic Harvester Recipe

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