Icarus Week 153 Update | Flamethrower, Double XP & Performance

Originally posted by author: FREE WEEKEND & DOUBLE XP NOW ON For this weekend the base game of Icarus is available to play for free! All with a Double XP event for everyone. The Double XP Event will run until Monday NZ Time. We have also included a special bundle for this weekend so if people are enjoying the game you can get the game and its expansions with a big discount.

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/46753/Icarus_Free_Weekend_Bundle/

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Welcome to Week 153.

This update comes a little early this week as its timed with a free weekend, a Double XP event and a reddit AMA.

This we are adding a brand new weapon type - a flamethrower. The first in a series of new weapons that will be introduced prior to some new creatures and bosses.

We provide a breakdown of some building optimizations and speak about Frozen wood veins we decided to add based on player feedback.

We currently have a reddit AMA for Icarus live where, Dean Hall - CEO, Jake Dodunski - Project Lead, Adam & Josh - Designers and other members of the team will be answering questions. You can find it here: /r/SurvivalGaming Icarus AMA

Also a quick preview into next weeks patch with the introduction of Cows, Calves and milk.

Notable Improvements

• Adding Scoria, Clay and Obsidian Resource Packs purchasable in the Orbital Workshop
  
• Players can now collect the notes in the Null Sector Missions as items and keep them to read them when they would like
  
• Reduced Sandworm & Landsharks weakness to fire damage (21x → 2x)
  
• Adding water as a requirement to craft a fire extinguisher, it now crafts full of water

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This Week: Building Occlusion Optimizations Investigations have been underway for a little while now into why large prospects really don’t hold up well, performance wise. We found that some settings were being applied to building meshes that actually prevented some engine-level optimizations (“Occlusion Culling”). In most games, when you put your camera up against a wall/rock/whatever, the objects you can’t see behind that object get occlusion culled. This happens for pretty much every object in Icarus, except it wasn’t happening for Buildables. So while your base may have been on the other side of that mountain, it was still being rendered if you looked in that direction.

Early on in the project we implemented a method for preventing weather effects appearing when standing inside buildings. While this works perfectly fine, the method implemented relies on a setting which also prevents occlusion culling on the building mesh itself, and as we discovered recently during early testing (thanks testers!), also prevents us from applying distance culling optimizations too. After rejigging the way in which we handle weather culling on the building meshes, we’re now able to ensure the building meshes are now both Occlusion and Distance culled, giving you the best possible performance!

In addition to the Buildable optimizations, we have also applied some more aggressive distance culling values to Deployables and Spline networks. The draw distance for Buildings, Deployables and Splines is now based on your “View Distance Quality” setting in the options menu.

In our test scenario, these changes resulted in a nearly 2x performance increase. We completely expect this result to vary based on a nearly infinite number of factors, but in general, players with large, heavy-hitting prospects should see a tangible performance increase.

We welcome your feedback on this change, let us know how your performance has changed (and what hardware you’re on and some details about prospect object numbers!), has the shorter draw distance negatively (or positively) impacted on your gameplay? Are certain buildings now leaking weather effects? Please let us know!

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This Week: The Flamethrower This week we are introducing the first of our new weapon types in preparation for some new creatures and bosses that are on the way.

Flamethrowers shoot a jet of flame and will deal continuous damage to anything within the area. Any flammable objects in the world also have a chance of catching on fire, further adding to the destructive power of this weapon!

The Flamethrower is crafted on the Machining Bench and is required to be filled up with biofuel to use. As the weapon’s recipe also takes biofuel, it comes with a full tank to start with. A handy gauge will keep you updated on how much fuel is remaining.

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This Week: Free Weekend & Double XP Event This weekend to coincide with the Free Weekend we have decided to introduce a double XP Event, this event will run through until Monday NZ Time. We hope you all enjoy it!
Also, for the duration of the free weekend you can get all the expansions and main content packs for the ultimate ICARUS experience at a great discount! Check out the Free Weekend Bundle above.

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This Week: Frozen Wood Veins Listening to feedback due to the lack of wood in the Null Sector we decided to add a very limited number of frozen wood nodes that can be drilled into with the Ice Borer. This allows wood, without having to trek all the way back out, which is an extremely long journey. We have only added a few so be on the lookout while in the Ice Sheets.

Frozen Wood Veins will provide Frozen Wood when drilled. This Frozen wood then needs to be heated up in a furnace, campfire or any of the heat based benches or devices, this then converts the frozen wood into wood.

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Next Week: Cows & Milk Next week we are introducing a new animal and resource. This is the cow. You will purchase a frozen calf in the orbital workshop and then raise them up into a cow. Cows then need to be fed and watered to produce milk. With that new milk resources comes a range of new recipes.

This is the first step we have towards animal breeding, in future you can expect Bulls, Chicks, Roosters and Lambs, we are ironing out the breeding mechanics at the moment and we will release it when we are happy.

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Your support makes these updates possible.
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/46753/Icarus_Free_Weekend_Bundle/

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

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Changelog v2.2.28.129531
New Content [expand type=details expanded=false]

• Unlocked scoria, clay and obsidian resource packs for release
  
• Add V2 version of flamethrower effect for comparison
  
• Adding all flamethrower footstep anim notifys
  
• Adding first pass flamethrower audio, event and blueprint data
  
• Adding new aim fire anim to reduce recoil spam on the assault rifle, rejigged reload anim and added 3RD person variants of the animations
  
• Flamethrower v2 prototype assets
  
• Setting up flame thrower actionable BP to trigger and stop audio based on click hold. Currently playing extinguisher as a placeholder
  
• Tweaks to the flamethrower audio. Also reduced equip canteen volume by 3db and added missing equip audio
  
• Updates to Flamethrower VFX V2
  
• Update Buildables, Deployables and Splines to all have reduced draw distance (Distance Culling) based on View Distance Quality setting
  
• Change CustomDepth pass to false (default) for main buildable mesh as this has no effect except causing the mesh to not be considered for Occlusion Culling
  
• Tidy up of Building Base BP, split up Event Graph into separate graphs for readability
  
• This change should have a substantial (in some extreme cases, up to 2x) performance improvement for larger prospects with many buildables/deployables
  
• Added Local Space VFX system to Flamethrower to fix gap when moving or turning
  
• Enabling Double XP Event, XP Bonus and Title Screen UI
  
• Unlocking Frozen Wood -> Wood Crafting Recipe in Most heated benches and devices
  
• Adding 6 Frozen Wood Deposits to the Icesheets Biome
  
• Unlocking Flamethrower Blueprint, Recipe and Item
  
• Adding biofuel as a requirement for crafting the flamethrower initially so it comes with a full tank
  
• Added Frozen Wood to advancced deep ore scanner
  
• Updated tag on Frozen Wood show it will show as a resource, and benefit from wood carry talents
  
• Updated Workshop Extractor and Battery to show on each other's Field Guide pages
  
• Updated Workshop Biofuel Canister to return to orbit again
  
• Change V2 flamethrower FX to be CPU not GPU to fix barrel disconnect. Increase sphere trace range from 5m to 10m
  
• Add new local version of Flamethrower FX as a _V3 revision and use V2 version for now. Flamethrower will now ignite any flammable target (not just Creatures)
  
• Tweak flamethrower hit length and radius to better match animation
  
• Fixed resource recipes not showing an icon when in the processing queue
  
• Small reduction to the pilot light audio on the flamethrower to avoid it becoming annoying at longer times of use
  
• Enable CustomDepth for Buildables during storms as it handles the weather culling. Don't apply Distance Culling to Destructible Meshes as their pieces can fall through the ground and decide it should cull the entire mesh
  
• Removed light particles from Flamethrower FX to avoid flickering when tesellation is on. Added fill light to Flamethrower BP
  
• Adding additional blend layers to the flamethrower to make it feel more weighty and dangerous. More low end gas boom
  
• Adding dry fire audio for flamethrower when its out of ammo and tries to be fired. Blueprint Imp
  
• Lowered landshark and caveworm fire damage weakness
  
• Adding Image for Double XP event and adjusting connecting overlay so its displayed on the title screen
  
• Add custom weather culling setup for buildings which allows the main building mesh to no longer be used for this purpose which allows further culling optimizations to be made. Small cleanup to Building Base BP to allow for additional begin play logic
  
• Add weather culling setup to Dropship so it no longer rains inside on your way down from space
  
• Don't allow flamethrower to be fired underwater. Remove secondary screenshake on fire-off. Dial back screenshake amount for initial shake
  
• Update unsaved Obsidian resource pack cost
  
• Fixed resource pack positioning for dirt
  
• Reduced clay and scoria resource pack cost slightly, increased obsidian resource pack costs
  
• Fixed third-person animation issues related to player not being able to look up or down when using the flamethrower.
  
• Fixed bug where flamethrower could get stuck in ADS animation when swapping focus from an equipped firearm.
  
• Added new TwoHandedRifle overlay state that should apply up/down movement dynamic additive anim
  
• Reduced cost of scoria, clay and obsidian workshop packs, but added red exotic cost
  
• Add Camshake setups for Flamethrower
  
• Remove distance culling on Building meshes as this breaks weather culling. Still should see solid gains via the remaining CustomDepth setting being removed preventing occlusion culling, but this needs to be disabled during weather again due to weather culling support. Investigation into alternatives to using CustomDepth for weather culling should happen at some point in the future but its heavily embedded into the codebase at the moment
  
• Tweaks to Flamethrower VFX, better bounding box and removing unnecessary persistent ID
  
• Tweak flamethrower hit length and radius to better match animation

[/expand]


Fixed [expand type=details expanded=false]

• Disable navmesh generation on the base mesh for Scoria/etc nodes. Animals were getting caught on the upper meshes so they should nav around them instead
  
• Fixed bug where CHAC Pistol and Assault Rifle gun animations weren't playing correctly
  
• Add translatable text to RELOCATED and VOYAGER
  
• Adding new Collectable Note Items, Logbooks and Audio Logs, these can be picked up and re-read whenever players want
  
• Adding new stat to goven what text / setup a note item refers to
  
• Converted ashlands / icesheet notes into this new format on reload
  
• Significantly reduced the Sandworm fire weakness (21x -> 2x damage taken)
  
• Fixed power toggle being visible on windmill where not required
  
• Add water to the fire extinguisher recipe and output
  
• Add water mention to fire extinguisher description
  
• Update weight of workshop creatures to not be 10 grams
  
• Fix another intermittent terrain anchor crash reported in Sentry (again)
  
• Fixed skinning bench slottable helper text being untranslated
  
• Fix stamina depleted animation stays up if player dies when stamina completed
  
• Fix divide by zero error on Flamethrower AnimBP for fuel gauge needle

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Future Content [expand type=details expanded=false]

• Matching framerate from the assault rifle gun reload to the 1ST person reload
  
• Adding in new 1ST person and gun animations for the assault rifle reload, 3RD person to follow once the gun anim can get hooked up for timing
  
• Added biolab consumables to workshop (feature locked)
  
• Add biolab currency setups for future bosses (feature locked)
  
• Fixed stack sizes of biolab inhalers
  
• disabled RVT on 2 materials used on cliffs in CF caves
  
• Adding flinch audio to ape. Audio, event, data table setup
  
• Fixed boss trophy stack sizes to be 1. Fixed vestige stack sizes to be 5. Increased durability on boss trophies to 500
  
• bDoFullyAsyncNavDataGathering is now turned off for built agents before generating navigation
  
• Migrating prototype fog to Icarus for testing
  
• Elysium - adjusted new riverstones textures to reduce tiling artifacts
  
• Adjusted ice mammoth ice kick to have 3 different types of projectiles. (Big + Many, Big + Accurate, Small + Many) to make a much wider spread
  
• Adding ape death vocalisation and movement land event, data table and notify
  
• Update biolab workshop tab to be named Bio-consumables
  
• Fixed display of damage stats on attachments
  
• Landscape Sculpting Pass in Green Quad Arctic and Flushed Grass On All Quads, Elysium
  
• Adding first person load assault rifle notifys to animation. Waiting on third person to add those. Also adding missing solar panel audio row
  
• Implemented Garganutan Frenzy Tonic
  
• Elysium, yellow quad - flushing grass again
  
• Adding black wolf trap set and catch audio, events and notifys
  
• Fixed scorpion attachment recipe providing wrong output
  
• Elysium, yellow quad - WIP geothermal transition area between tundra and desert
  
• DLC2 - geothermal material variants for various cliffs and stalagmites
  
• Fixed ice mammoth chandelier destructible mesh
  
• Generated navigation for Rock Golem arena after enabling nav for rock walls.
  
• Rock Golem light attack is now much quicker.
  
• Updates to FollowSplinePath BTTask to fix some issues where RockGolem would get stuck trying to reach it's destination on spline.
  
• Fixed issure where Rock Golem would try to navigate behind walls if player was standing next to one.
  
• Rock Golem no longer attemps to eat fast moving projectiles.
  
• Rock Golem no longer aborts its light attack phase if attacked.
  
• Fixed bug where Rock Golem would damage player from a very long way away when first starting to roll.
  
• Rock Golem now attempts to eat rock clusters when low on health, not when out of armour
  
• Added Updated SK_DEP_Great_Hunt_Device with separates proxies and separate SK_DEP_Great_Hunt_Device_Bench with animations
  
• Added Great Hunt juvenile-esque creatures
  
• Add bestiary hookups for Great Hunt bosses, update feature level and names
  
• Fixed Hammerhead module name
  
• Adding New Logic for Reading in the ItemManipulation Component
  
• Work on RG_C mission, adding new prebuilt outpost, quest steps notes etc
  
• Adding Quest Markers and Prebuilt Island to be spawned in when starting the RG_C mission
  
• Adding Ape Armor Icons & Notes / Logbook Icons
  
• Added Garganutan Frenzy Tonic Icon
  
• Strip unused RVT content from GeothermalTerrace BP to fix errors and optimize. Create sockets on meshes to position VFX correctly for the different shaped meshes. Trigger Sulfur VFX on Terraces during Sulfur storms (was sitting there, but never triggered)
  
• Adding first person and third person assault rifle mag out and mag in. Audio events and notifies
  
• Adjusted assault rifle out of ammo mech sound which clashed with reload
  
• IMP Pass Blockout on Yellow Quad, Elysium
  
• Landscape Sculpting Pass and Cliff Pass, Green Quad, Elysium
  
• Increase recoil and reduce accuracy on the Assault rifle
  
• Recoil is now reduced by standing still, aiming down sights and crouching
  
• DLC2 - fixed holes in one of the new imp meshes, WIP insert cave tunnel mesh
  
• Fix a race condition in instanced levels where a client in the instanced level returns to character select
  
• Setting up wood deep ore drill audio event
  
• Added missing items static audio table row for glass bottles
  
• GH_RG_C mission is now in and fully playable
  
• Update central node for cow talent tree
  
• Add cow skill tree and fix some creature setup
  
• Adding ape notifies. Footsteps and attack vocalisations and footstep event
  
• Fixed AI relationship for cow, calf, chick and lamb, to ensure they get attacked by wild creatures instead of friendly creatures
  
• Fix taming temperatures on juvenile cow, chicken and sheep
  
• Adding deploy audio and correct data table rows for notes
  
• Ape Great Hunt mission tree initial setup
  
• Adding pilot audio that starts only if there is enough fuel in the flamethrower and stops when run out. Audio, event and blueprint imp
  
• Slight further adjustment to assault rifle empty ring and mag in out volumes
  
• Fix revive location when player dies in an instanced level, RTCS, then rejoins, then is revived
  
• revised insert cave tunnel mesh with custom LODs
  
• Adding ape beat chest audio event and notifys
  
• IMP Pass Blockout on Yellow Quad, Elysium
  
• Landscape Sculpting Pass, Lake and River Pass on Green Quad, Elysium
  
• Adding movement layers for the swamp ape. Ape whoosh and all notifiers
  
• Fix revive location when player dies in an instanced level, RTCS, then rejoins, then is revived (offset wrong direction)
  
• More ape notifiers
  
• Adding ape slam audio, event and notifiers
  
• GH_RG_D is now fully playable
  
• Adding new Item Condensed Exotics that is carried in the utility slot
  
• Adding new recipe to convert Condensed Exotics into Exotics
  
• Adding Item Icon for Rock Golem Juvenile Vestige
  
• Adding Item Icon for Condensed Exotic
  
• GH_RG_F is now fully playable
  
• Added a workshop to GH_RG_D2
  
• GH_RG_E Mission is fully playable
  
• GH_RG_D2 is now fully playable
  
• GH_RG_C2 is now fully playable
  
• Juvenile Rock Golems now can be oxite/copper/coal/iron/gold infused, added modifier stats and icons
  
• Added Juvenile Rock Golem Spawers elemental varients
  
• Adjusting loot of rock golems to drop ore related to their infusio
  
• Fixed Issue where Juvi Rock Golems would not transition into corpses when dead
  
• Juvi Rock Golem now has its armor when it transisitons to a corpse
  
• Fixed Juvi Rock Golem so it now longer walks on top of players, players can no longer get stuck inside Juvi Rock Golems
  
• Adjusted Juvi Rock Golem Loot so it now longer drops all of the ores
  
• Juvi Rock Golem now hides its armor when skinned
  
• Fixed New Quest Cleanup Function which would try and turn recording off on actors that did not have a recorder
  
• Added SK_ITM_Pitchfork
  
• Added DEP_Trophy_Golem_1,DEP_Trophy_Golem_2 and DEP_Trophy_Golem_3
  
• Landscape Sculpting Pass and Cliff Pass, Green and Orange Quads, Elysium
  
• Adding different audio events for smaller projectiles travelling and impacts for ice mammoth
  
• IMP Pass Blockout, Added Re-textured DC Caves and Eden Cave Blockout on Yellow Quad, Elysium
  
• DLC2 - added 2 new impassables for desert
  
• Adding sledgehammer equip and pickup audio
  
• Fixed Lava Broodling trophy being feature locked

[/expand]